Tax hike remains up in the air

Ritter, lawmakers look at options as session nears

By Chris Barge, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Saturday, January 5, 2008

Evan Semon / The Rocky

Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter points out the Denver mayor's office at the City and County Building to a group of Cub Scouts during a tour of the Capitol on Friday.

Ahmad Terry / The Rocky/2007

Ritter's transportation panel says it would take another $1.5 billion per year for roads, bridges and other projects.

Dennis Schroeder / The Rocky/2007

The state's public colleges and universities would need an annual $750 million boost just to reach the national average, higher education director David Skaggs said.

Dennis Schroeder / The Rocky/2007

Nurse practitioner Julie Henderson takes a throat culture from Jennifer Bridges. Ritter termed health care one of his "marathon' issues this year.

Evan Semon / The Rocky

Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter points out the Denver mayor's office at the City and County Building to a group of Cub Scouts during a tour of the Capitol on Friday.

Ahmad Terry / The Rocky/2007

Ritter's transportation panel says it would take another $1.5 billion per year for roads, bridges and other projects.

Dennis Schroeder / The Rocky/2007

The state's public colleges and universities would need an annual $750 million boost just to reach the national average, higher education director David Skaggs said.

Dennis Schroeder / The Rocky/2007

Nurse practitioner Julie Henderson takes a throat culture from Jennifer Bridges. Ritter termed health care one of his "marathon' issues this year.

Evan Semon / The Rocky

Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter points out the Denver mayor's office at the City and County Building to a group of Cub Scouts during a tour of the Capitol on Friday.

Ahmad Terry / The Rocky/2007

Ritter's transportation panel says it would take another $1.5 billion per year for roads, bridges and other projects.

Dennis Schroeder / The Rocky/2007

The state's public colleges and universities would need an annual $750 million boost just to reach the national average, higher education director David Skaggs said.

Dennis Schroeder / The Rocky/2007

Nurse practitioner Julie Henderson takes a throat culture from Jennifer Bridges. Ritter termed health care one of his "marathon' issues this year.

Evan Semon / The Rocky

Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter points out the Denver mayor's office at the City and County Building to a group of Cub Scouts during a tour of the Capitol on Friday.

Ahmad Terry / The Rocky/2007

Ritter's transportation panel says it would take another $1.5 billion per year for roads, bridges and other projects.

Dennis Schroeder / The Rocky/2007

The state's public colleges and universities would need an annual $750 million boost just to reach the national average, higher education director David Skaggs said.

Dennis Schroeder / The Rocky/2007

Nurse practitioner Julie Henderson takes a throat culture from Jennifer Bridges. Ritter termed health care one of his "marathon' issues this year.

Gov. Bill Ritter spent his first year in office talking about tackling Colorado's biggest problems - health care, transportation and pulling higher education funding out of the cellar.

He appointed blue ribbon commissions to get buy-in from interest groups on possible fixes and to nail down costs.

By the fall, Ritter was signaling he might back a tax increase for one of the big three needs.

Thursday, Ritter will stand before the legislature and update his vision for Colorado at his second State of the State speech.

But going in, he's up against a weakening Colorado economy as well as a unified Republican minority that says it can accomplish some of Ritter's agenda without a tax increase.

His fellow Democrats in control of both houses are shying from talk of a tax hike. And Ritter is adjusting his message, saying that out of his commissions have come ideas for at least incremental progress on what he calls "marathon" issues.

"None of those things are amenable to quick change," Ritter said in an interview last month. "And leadership is articulating what the issue is, defining a plan over time and then doing all you can to move in the direction of that plan. And we think we're doing that as it relates to all three of those things."

Just the facts

Ritter asked his commissions to come up with hard numbers, and they delivered. The Blue Ribbon Commission on Health Care Reform has found the state would need more than $1 billion per year to come anywhere close to reaching Ritter's goal of giving every Coloradan access to basic health insurance and health care by 2010.

Ritter's transportation panel has determined it would take another $1.5 billion per year to keep roads, bridges and transit systems apace with the state's projected population growth.

And the state's public colleges and universities, which are among the lowest-funded in the country, would need an annual $750 million boost just to reach the national average, higher-education director David Skaggs estimates. Ritter says he wants to hit that average by 2017.

Ritter told lawmakers during the fall that there should be no more than one tax question on the 2008 ballot.

In an interview with the Rocky, Ritter said he will wait until halfway through the legislative session to decide whether to back a tax measure. Public opinion, Colorado's economy and the national health care debate playing out among the presidential contenders will all weigh on his decision, Ritter said.

He pointed out that Referendum C didn't coalesce until halfway through the 2005 legislative session, and it still made that year's ballot and was passed. Ref C allowed the state to keep tax revenues in excess of limitations imposed by the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights.

Republicans say that the public is in no mood for a tax hike.

"All the research that we've seen shows it's a very hard sell," said State Senate Minority Leader Andy McElhany, R-Colorado Springs. "And I think it becomes even more difficult when you take the governor's kind of unfocused position that he wants to raise a tax but he doesn't know which one or what he wants to raise the revenue for."

The Republicans that Ritter criticized last year for sniping at his proposals without offering alternatives are coming back with a plan for solving many of the problems he has identified, without raising taxes.

"I think it is helpful they're bringing things to the table as opposed to just standing out there and firing salvos over our bow," Ritter said.

House and Senate Democrats have singled out health care as one of their three priorities this session.

But they have folded transportation and higher education funding under a broader umbrella of economic development.

They will introduce bills giving tax breaks to small business and infusing start-up cash into Colorado's budding bioscience, biotech and nanotech sectors.

And Democrats want to eliminate the waiting lists for preschool and kindergarten, put in place a "pay for performance" system to recruit and retain top-flight teachers and to fix crumbling public schools.

Health care plans

The 208 Commission - named for the bill that created it to find ways to expand health care coverage and hold down costs - will present its recommendations to the legislature at the end of this month.

The commission has found that covering 88 percent of the state's 790,000 uninsured would cost the state $1.1 billion and require a law mandating all Coloradans have health insurance.

Republicans have proposed a series of alternative bills that would help expand access to health care, especially for children, without increasing taxes or requiring every Coloradan to have insurance.

Democrats too are now downplaying the need for a tax hike for health care reform.

House Speaker Andrew Romanoff echoes the commission's findings that the system can be made more efficient to the tune of $167 million by cutting administrative costs. He also said lawmakers can't ignore the fact that uninsured people going to emergency rooms for treatment is driving up the cost of health care for everyone.

Ritter said the commission has provided lawmakers ways to improve health care in stages, with or without a tax increase this year.

"There is a hope on our part that we can do something to increase access without going to the ballot, particularly as it relates to children, to the developmentally disabled. Those are all part of progress," he said.

However, Bill Lindsay, the Republican chairman of the health care commission, has said that while incremental progress may be possible, sooner or later the state will have to foot the bill if it wants to fix health care.

Studying transportation

Democrats are promising action on health care as soon as the 208 Commission presents its findings. However, they aren't promising the same for transportation or higher education.

Democrats say the debate over how to fund transportation is still unfolding. And Ritter says on the transportation front, he would be satisfied with a significant debate on funding.

"Understand that transportation is not just about highways, but land use planning with climate change in mind," he said.

Senate President-elect Peter Groff, a professor at the University of Denver, said he fears the state's public colleges and universities could be privatized if the state can't find a way to bail them out. But the Denver Democrat acknowledges that, compared to other issues, higher education doesn't poll as well with voters.

At a minimum, Ritter has asked lawmakers to devote more than $50 million next year to higher education, a number similar to what he requested and the legislature approved last year. The money represents most of the state's discretionary spending.

When the legislative session starts Wednesday, lawmakers' first order of business will be fixing the problems pointed out by Secretary of State Mike Coffman when he decertified most of the state's voting machines.

The Democratic agenda also faces other obstacles.

For example, Republicans plan to introduce a bill that would reverse Ritter's executive order making unions a larger player in state government. And they hope a pending lawsuit overturns a bill Ritter pushed through last year that shored up a shrinking state education fund by freezing local property tax rates in most school districts, eliminating ongoing tax cuts that otherwise would have taken place under a 1994 school finance law.

Ritter anticipates he'll have to bat away those and other unforeseen curveballs this session.

"That's just part of the world that we live in," Ritter said. "You do all you can to keep the focus, try and not be distracted by other things, but you don't know what the next four months will look like. It's what makes it both exciting and challenging and, quite frankly, meaningful."

bargec@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5059

The series

Gov. Bill Ritter has identified health care reform, transportation and funding higher education as the biggest challenges facing Colorado. The Rocky looks at each of those issues and how the governor and lawmakers plan to address them during the legislative session that opens Wednesday.

* Today: Ritter's challenges

* Monday: Transportation

* Tuesday: Higher education

* Wednesday: Health care

• January 5, 2008

  7:21 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  sampson writes:

  Yes...definetely raise my taxes. You just never know when the next Lisa Simpson or Gary Barnett will come along. Oh... and then there's Ward Churchill

• January 5, 2008

  10:40 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  Brockage writes:

  I agree --- raise the daylights out of our taxes, and then we can come up with lists of lots of wonderful programs to spend all that money on -- sounds like fun. Of course when I say taxes, I mean tax the rich -- those people making more money than I do.

• January 5, 2008

  12:34 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  vudumom writes:

  In my house we have a rule ,if you can't afford it we do without it. I would love to have a new car.My 99 runs fine and has low mileage and we just can't afford a new vehicle.
  I would love a bigger newer house. My house was built in1985 and we bought it in 1997,before the market went sky high and $30,000 under what other homes were going for,refied a few times and now have a 15 year 4.8% fixed mortgage,our payments are $750 a month less taxes.We can't afford a new home so we don't bother looking.This one will be paid off in about 7 years.
  I would love to take my children to Disney World,but we can't afford it. We have a policy in our house,we don't buy what we can't afford and we don't go into debt to satisfy an urge to have something better if we can't afford it.

  This is the way government should be run. Pay the bills you have to pay.Don't go into debt.Don't come up with plans that you can't afford without making other people pay for them.You can't be all things to all people.

  Stop raising taxes on people who have been fiscally responsible in their own homes only for the government to take more away from them to pay for someone else's things.

• January 5, 2008

  9:48 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  Darwin writes:

  We can have a twofer. Clinton and Obama both promise to raise taxes if/when they are elected President. Let the good times roll.

• January 5, 2008

  11:22 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  clyde writes:

  Where's the Ref C money???????

• January 5, 2008

  11:30 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  clyde writes:

  And again... Where's the Ref C money????

• January 5, 2008

  11:31 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  clyde writes:

  Anyone remember Ref C??? The be-all and end-all to cure all. Anyone seen where the money went????

• January 5, 2008

  11:52 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  gethoht writes:

  Why don't we tax energy development at the level that states like Wyoming and New Mexico do? Wyoming has billions in their surplus, there's really no reason that colorado couldn't either.

• January 6, 2008

  6:05 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  Earl writes:

  lets tax fast food say 0.50 cents per burger or taco. sure wouldnt take long to have a huge surplus in the state.

• January 6, 2008

  6:53 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  Mtnsjohn writes:

  The Dems want to be seen as "business friendly" so won't hold businesses accountable.

  Give away our gas and oil resources. In 2004, Wyoming had 683 million in severance revenue, New Mexico, 587 Million and Colorado......115 million. As percentage of total tax revenues, Wyoming's severance equalled 45.4% of taxes collected (where there is no state income tax), New Mexico's equalled 14.7 and Colorado's severance was just 1.6 percent of total taxes collected.
  http://www.ncsl.org/programs/fiscal/s...

  Another case in point: Under Owens, the State passed some of the strictest illegal immigraton laws directed at employers and even hired a criminal investigator to enforce those laws.

  Under Ritter, business has been given a pass, enforcement has been mostly ignored under the Division of Labor, and that sole criminal investigator position was reallocated to one of "compliance officer" with "enforcement" given no more priority than minimum wage and other labor laws.

• January 6, 2008

  7:44 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  ColoNative writes:

  The ability to tax is the ability to destroy. The housing market in Denver is in the toilet and politicians want more money. Somebody just does not get it. You think that the high Colorado tax rate may have something to do with new businesses going elsewhere?

• January 6, 2008

  9:15 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  glowrock writes:

  Actually, no. Colorado's tax rate is relatively low, ColoNative. Wyoming only has no income tax because it lives nearly entirely off of energy severance taxes, and of course it only having 550k people or so in the whole state.

  If you think Colorado's taxes are too high, then I suggest you check out the vast majority of states where property taxes are MUCH higher than Colorado's... It just happens to be that Colorado has a relatively level-headed tax collection plan of income, sales, and property taxes, while some other states (Wyoming, Texas, New Hampshire, Nevada) have no income tax, but rely on extremely high property taxes...

• January 6, 2008

  9:34 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  LOUIE writes:

  The government(s), state and local, need to downsize service, thus eliminating not only the employees, but also the fees colleted by the office of these employees. Please don't let government use thier tax grip on the free world of private enterprise, to strangle business and private investment. Businesses and people, in a capatalistic society, invest and reinvest profit capital. Profits employ more people, expand business opportunity, impower the economic power of free enterprise. When taxes are lowered, or removed from fanacially oppressing them, the private sector of free enterprise flourishes. Sorry to those who work in government, you need to face the same reality employees in the private sector have faced everyday for years. An employee whether working for the government or private enterprise, is still an employee, and thus should be governed by the same economic conditions as they exist for both . We need regulatory functions financed by tax, no more subsidies, luxury taxes, inheritance taxes, capital gain taxes...the government needs not serve the people as much as regulate the people. We the people are the power and might of free enterprise. Profits supply fuel to the engines of free enterprise, the people can't afford to drive government's gas guzzling, fume belching, Cadillac right now. It time to rebuild the engines of America.

• January 6, 2008

  12:58 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  prk166 writes:

  glowrock ---> One problem is housing prices. The higher the value of the home, the more dollars the owner shells out. It's pretty easy to have a lower property tax rate when you do things like put up urban growth boundaries and constrain growth so the same home that would go for $180k in Houston is going for $260k in Denver.

  True, Colorado's taxes aren't bad but that's no reason to make them so. Just look at Ref C, they've already burned through that money faster than a teenager trying to impress their first date.

  Flat tax anyone?