About a month ago, I highlighted the release of a liberal interest group’s report that used selective and distorted statistics to argue that Colorado needs a huge tax increase. Predictably, local Lefty bloggers leaped to embrace the work with little appearance of critical hesitation. Then I wrote:
My friends, the Left in Colorado is growing desperate and increasingly irrational. They blindly accept a report written by their ideological allies that shares their premises. Come to this site for a critical analysis of the report. And hopefully others will offer their critical analyses, as well. Then we may see a little bit more independent thinking taking place.
Well, I’ve been slow to add my critical analysis. It is summertime, after all. But leave it to the insightful Mark Hillman – former state senate leader and interim state treasurer with the common sense of a wheat farmer – to debunk the fallacious report with real statistics. It’s a must-read, if you have any interest in seeing through the Left’s attempt to gin up the case for raising your taxes through the roof:
Colorado Fiscal Policy Institute’s “Aiming for the Middle” whitepaper concludes that you, Mr. and Mrs. Colorado, are under-taxed to the tune of $3.3 billion a year — maybe more. That’s $1,030 a year for every man, woman and child in the state.
And before you write off this outfit as a bunch of crackpots, notice that a former budget director for Gov. Roy Romer is behind this proposal.
Such a massive spending increase — triple the size of Referendum C — would require a 43-percent across the board increase in state income and sales taxes that currently produce about $7.5 billion a year.
And that’s their price tag just to elevate Colorado to “average” among the 50 states. “Merely ‘aiming for the middle’ may not be bold enough for Colorado,” the report suggests. To hear them tell it, you’d think we are living in “Colobama.”
According to CFPI’s selective data, Colorado ranks near the bottom of most states in various measures of government spending. Not only are CFPI’s prescriptions flawed, so is its data which seem to seek out skewed indicators to create the impression of impoverished government.
Read the whole thing, and then observe the silent responses from the Left to this weighty refutation of their sacred report from a credentialed critic using logical argument and credible sources. It’s been six days since the critique was posted, and I’ve seen no responses from those who so quickly embraced the report as gospel proof of their agenda. (Please feel free to direct me to any response I may have overlooked. I will gladly extend my remarks to reflect it.)
Finally, as Mark points out, the responsible members of the state’s majority party would be wise to ignore the Colorado Fiscal Policy Institute on this matter:
In the last two elections, Democrats claimed to support fiscal restraint. If they follow CFPI’s prescription, Colorado voters will soon institute a fiscally-conservative cure.
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