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Radio ads take on budget measure

Campaign against Referendum C to hit airwaves today

Jim Tankersley, Rocky Mountain News

Published June 4, 2005 at midnight

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The radio ads start with people screaming in terror over the state "budget crisis."

A narrator then insists there is no crisis, saying the state budget is bigger than ever. She warns that residents could lose "all of our tax refunds for the next five years."

Coloradans can expect to hear those ads starting today. They are the opening salvos in the campaign against Referendum C.

Opponents of the budget-balancing measure on the November ballot have formed a committee packed with Republican heavyweights. Their ads deride the measure as a "forever tax increase."

Referendum C asks voters to lift spending limits for five years to help state government recover from recession. It would let lawmakers spend an estimated $3.1 billion on health care, education and transportation that otherwise would be refunded to taxpayers under the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights.

The Golden-based Independence Institute, a fiscally conservative think tank, will blast the measure in the $30,000 ad campaign starting today on KHOW, KBCO, KOA and other stations, institute President Jon Caldara said.

Caldara said the ads are meant to "get people prepared for the sky-is-falling silliness" that he said Referendum C supporters will campaign on.

The communications director for the campaign to pass Referendum C and its companion measure, Referendum D, which would allow legislators to borrow money for state road construction, dismissed the ads on Friday."I'm not sure what referendum they're describing," said Katy Atkinson, "but it's not Referendum C and Referendum D . . . the numbers games they're playing are very cute."

Colorado's $15.2 billion budget for 2005-06 is the largest in state history. Referendum C proponents, however, say the budget hasn't grown fast enough to keep up with the rising costs of and demands on many state programs.

Lawmakers estimate they'll need to cut a cumulative $2 billion from state services in the next five years if the measure fails and spend little on transportation from the general fund.

While the measure would eliminate TABOR refunds - which taxpayers last received in 2001 - through 2010, it would not affect state or federal income tax refunds.

Referendum C is the product of negotiations between legislative leaders and Gov. Bill Owens.

The campaign to pass it is headed by Denver business leader Joe Blake, former Colorado State University President Al Yates and one of the state's top Republican fund-raisers, Bruce Benson.

Caldara said he'll form the opposition campaign, "Vote No, It's Your Dough," next week. (The name mimics a slogan he used in 1998 to beat another statewide spending initiative.)

He said the group's finance committee includes several big GOP boosters with close ties to Owens, such as businessman Ralph Nagel, brewery scion Jeff Coors and former U.S. Sen. Bill Armstrong.

"Good people can disagree," the governor's spokesman, Dan Hopkins, said Friday in response.

Other opponents, including several national anti-tax organizations, will likely supplement the formal committee with separate efforts.

The Colorado Club for Growth, for example, plans to roll a large "Trojan horse" with a "Vote No" banner to parades, rodeos and other public events this summer.