Colorado Prop 103: Weak Case for Tax Hike’s Job-Killing “Domino” Effect

Update, 11/2: Welcome, Michelle Malkin readers… Thanks for the link!

Colorado has one issue on the statewide ballot this year: Proposition 103, a large tax hike sold as a way to increase revenues for K-12 and higher education. Unfortunately, there are two major problems with this proposal that render it unworthy of support.

First, it’s a job-killer that very well could prolong and deepen our state’s current recession. An Independence Institute issue paper by Dr. Barry Poulson finds that more than 11,000 jobs will be killed, a devastating analysis of the Prop 103 “domino” effect most creatively expressed in this amazing 3-minute video:

Second, the case for more K-12 education funding rests on a very weak foundation that lacks valuable context. Mike Rosen cited some numbers I dug up for him from the Colorado Department of Education in his column today for the Denver Post:

Complaints that public education spending in Colorado has been slashed in recent years conveniently ignore the big picture. Ben DeGrow at the Independence Institute reports that total annual expenditures on K-12, adjusted for inflation, from 1999 to 2010 have increased by $3.2 billion or 46 percent. Per pupil spending is up 24 percent. There’s little to show for it in the way of results.

Simply put, that quick one-two punch should inform Colorado voters why Prop 103 deserves to go down in flames. The Independence Institute’s Ed Is Watching blog also has a similar, more lighthearted take.