• Defeated Colorado Prop HH Was A TABOR Taxpayer Refund Theft Attempt Disguised As Tax Relief

    November 14, 2023
    5 Comments
    Image by User:Michael Barera. Colorado Capitol

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    On Tuesday, November 7, 2023, Colorado voters wisely rejected Proposition HH. Prop HH was TABOR1 refund theft despicably disguised as property tax relief. The real goal of the Democrat initiated Prop HH was to take your TABOR refund and (supposedly) apply it to your now-skyrocketing property tax bill. The greatest problem/obstacle facing our Democrat fiat state government is the inconvenient fact that they can’t take tax surpluses without a popular vote…this is because of TABOR. So, for years, they have tried to get around abolishing TABOR (that has become a third-rail issue for them) by trotting out various measures that typically begin with language like: “Without increasing taxes” will you let us spend your money on (insert special issue here). Prop HH would have given Polis and his Democrat supermajority fan club in the General Assembly access to millions of TABOR dollars. But you said “no.” Good on you.

    But why was Prop HH even a plausible or viable plan? Why would a majority of Colorado voters suddenly need Jared Polis to use their own money for property tax relief? Why are property taxes suddenly causing a political crisis? Because Colorado voters approved the repeal of the so-called Gallagher Amendment2 in 2020 – the only thing standing in the way of nearly unchecked property tax hikes. Repeal of the Gallagher Amendment was sold as a way to reduce business property taxes but offered no such protection for homeowners. Voters were told, “Trust us, we’ll replace the Gallagher Amendment with something to protect homeowners too, but right now, we need to help businesses.” Needless to say, nothing was offered by the legislature to safeguard homeowners. This created the environment for Prop HH.

    This wasn’t an accident or a coincidence. This is the sort of manufactured crisis our government is quite skilled at. It’s the Hegelian Dialectic: Create a problem so that a solution can be applied that achieves a desired outcome. The desired outcome here was access to TABOR money. Since repealing TABOR is a non-starter and we’ve caught on to the “without raising taxes” scam, Polis and his General Assembly Democrats needed to make a crisis: property taxes. They fooled Colorado into voting away their protection from outrageous property taxes in 2020. Now that the people can clearly see the negative effects of that3, it should have been easy to push Prop HH relief through. But it wasn’t. It failed and now Polis and his Democrats are stuck with a crisis they created. To make it worse for them and their agenda, the 2024 election cycle is underway (it’s pretty much always an election cycle). They have to do something to fix or at least mitigate the problem they made; thus, an emergency session of the General Assembly will convene on November 15.

    What can we expect from this emergency session? Their (the Democrats’) best bet would be to approve some sort of magnanimous relief package so that the Colorado electorate will be happy and praise Polis and his Dems for having rescued them from disaster. But it will only be temporary. In order to provide real relief, there will need to be -- wait for it -- ANOTHER BALLOT MEASURE!!!! This one will be even more nebulous and misleading than HH and more cleverly hide the fact that you’ll be voting away your rights under TABOR. The ballot measure will begin in the General Assembly (the same way Prop HH did) and any Republican who opposes it will be branded as heartless for opposing the furtherance of the crisis the Democrats began. Remember, their ultimate goal is access to moneys protected by TABOR. Repealing the Gallagher Amendment was meant to cause pain and hardship and force us to look to government for relief. The more we suffer, the more likely we will be to take whatever we can get to stop/reduce the suffering and thank our abusers for their mercy. This is standard practice for oppressive systems—it’s a kind of Stockholm Syndrome imposed statewide.

    The best and perhaps only way to eliminate this and any other government-manufactured crisis, is to get rid of the Democrats, go-along-to-get-along Republicans, and any other big government politicians. We need less (a lot less) government in our state and in our lives. The best help we could ever hope for is for them to go away.

    If you allow the government to break the law in a crisis; the government will create a crisis in order to break the law

    1. Tax Payer Bill of Rights
    2. The Gallagher Amendment limited the assessment rate for residential property. In 1982, when the amendment passed the rate was 21%; it was at 7.5% when it was repealed in 2020. Property values have increased 37% in two years (over 50% in some counties), without the Gallagher limits, property taxes increase commensurate with the assessed value.
    3. https://www.cpr.org/2023/10/19/colorado-property-taxes-values-explainer/The average Colorado home increased 37% in value since 2021 with an equal impact on homeowners’ property taxes.

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    Author

    Todd Watkins

    Todd Watkins is a contributor to www.ColoraodFreePress.com and the Vice Chairman of the El Paso County (CO) Republican Party. Todd retired from the US Border Patrol as an Assistant Chief on May 31, 2021 after 24 years of service.
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    5 Comments
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    catgar

    Thank you for exposing Polis and Crew for the Marxists they truly are...

    A. Taylor

    That is a crooked cover photo! Lol

    IMG_5169
    Jim Zietlow

    Exactly!

    Paris Green

    It’s a crooked place.

    Marty G Kirkpatrick

    Government has made the word 'homeowner' a misnomer.

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