WESTERN SKIES - September 29, 2005

*** DEBATE ON C AND D CONTINUES ***

ERIC WHITNEY: There's only one month left until Colorado's November first election. This means supporters and opponents of Referenda C and D are working to cram a lot of campaigning into the coming weeks. Referendum C would allow the state government to keep TABOR refunds for five years and Referendum D would authorize state bonds to fund construction projects. Opponents of the two measures have filed lawsuits, run TV and radio ads, and talked about wasteful spending. Not to be outdone, supporters have run their own ads, secured a lot of endorsements, and, as Stephen Raher reports, some of them are walking the length of the state, north to south.

STEPHEN RAHER: Politicians have been known to pull some outlandish stunts to get elected, but once in office, we usually think of them living a comfortable life, enjoying the perks of officialdom and the benefits of incumbency. So it's a little surprising that on a cold, wet Wednesday morning in western Pueblo County, the Majority Leader of the Colorado Senate is walking on the side of the road, carrying a homemade sign, with Highway 50 traffic screaming past his right shoulder.

[sound of traffic]

RAHER: Senator Ken Gordon, a Denver Democrat, is the driving force behind the Walk for Colorado in support of Referenda C and D.

SEN. KEN GORDON: We've been telling people that this is important. People don't vote in odd-year elections. The turn out's usually shamefully low. And one of the reasons we're doing this is to show people that if someone's willing to walk the whole state for something, it must be important enough to at least vote on.

RAHER: The campaigning for Referendum C technically started on April eighteenth, the day it was passed by the legislature. But as the November first election has approached, both sides have become increasingly earnest in their messages.

Referendum C is being supported by many Republican politicians, some of whom have joined Senator Gordon in his walk. But today, the only other legislator walking with Gordon is a Democrat, Abel Tapia of Pueblo. Tapia is the chair of the powerful Joint Budget Committee. He says tackling next year's budget will be quite painful if Referendum C doesn't pass.

SEN. ABEL TAPIA: We've just gotten a report that's available to anybody that says we, the current projection right now is something like five hundred and forty million dollar deficit in the next fiscal year. That means we're going to have to make cuts of five hundred and forty. To put that in perspective, the whole budget on higher education is right about five hundred million dollars.

RAHER: But opponents of Referendum C are adamant that the state is not experiencing a budget crisis.

ARI ARMSTRONG: Most of the alleged cuts that we hear about are not actually cuts at all. They're actually anticipated spending increases.

RAHER: Ari Armstrong is the publisher of the Colorado Freedom Report, a libertarian-leaning "review of politics and culture." He's worked with many of the lead opponents of Referenda C and D and authored a report earlier this year on wasteful spending by state government.

ARMSTRONG: Now, depending on which forecast you look at, you might get a one-time small cut next year, after which time spending is already expected to increase every year after that, under current rules. So we're not talking about cuts at all, we're talking about increased spending. The difference is, do we want increased spending under current rules, or do we want three-point-seven-four billion more dollars of increased spending over the next five years?

RAHER: Many of Armstrong's allies have attacked Referendum C as a tax increase. Armstrong himself says that even though the tax rate would not be raised under the ballot measure, people would not get TABOR refunds, so in essence their tax bill would be higher. Senator Gordon, for one, isn't that interested in debating whether this constitutes a tax increase or not.

GORDON: I think it's semantics. We're keeping money that otherwise would be refunded and using it for education, healthcare, and transportation, which people want. So we're using money for services, if you want the services they cost money.

RAHER: Gordon mentions education, healthcare, and transportation because those are three of the four categories that Referendum C is designed to fund. The fourth is local firefighter and police pension plans. But Ari Armstrong doesn't trust the promise that money will go only to these areas.

ARMSTRONG: Referendum C is essentially a blank check. There are no real requirements on how that money can be spent. Now, it is true that the language of Referendum C lists the four broad categories, right, but it doesn't say how much has to be spent on any one of those things. And there's also the problem that the legislature take existing money out of those programs and replace it with Referendum C money. So, in that sense I've described that as a shell game.

RAHER: Armstrong also attacks wasteful state spending, although others have criticized him, saying that government spending on condoms or public art is not, in fact, wasteful. He remains unconvinced, however, pointing to large scale waste like Medicaid fraud and economic development grants.

ARMSTRONG: The Economic Development Commission got about nearly a million dollars in general fund money in this year's budget. What does it do with that money? It gives it to corporations. Why is that a useful expense?

RAHER: Both sides of this debate are frantically trying to secure votes ahead of the election. Government fiscal policy isn't something that motivates a lot of people to action, so it's hard to get a definite sense of which side, if either, has momentum. But, undeterred by wind or rain, Senator Gordon will continue his walk which is scheduled to conclude at the Colorado-New Mexico border on October tenth.

GORDON: If you want Colorado to be able to compete in a global business economy with students who can do math, do science, then we need to invest in these things. But it costs some money, it's true.

RAHER: Information on Referenda C and D, including links to many of the documents mentioned in this report, are available at the Western Skies section of KRCC.org.

For Western Skies, I'm Stephen Raher on Highway 50 in Pueblo County.