Actually, its not Tabor that's the problem. It's Amendment 22, which mandates an ever increasing percentage of the state budget go to the teacher's union. So the general fund goes down every year.
Ref C will not change that inherent dynamic. In five years, things will be just as tight because of Amendment 22 and the piggies will be back for more money, probably with more moderate Republican support. (In fact, things will be worse in five years because rats control the legislature here and they will waste the 4 or so billion raised by Ref C.)
The rats designed Amendment 22 as a Tabor killer and the deed is all but done at this point, even if it has been kept symbolically alive. That nominal Republicans acquiesed (no, cheerlead) in the rat's Tabor killing strategy is inexcusable and unforgivable.
This conservative will remember who did and did not support C. I'm a party officer. And I'm committed to serving thru 2006. After that, I can't stay with this party anymore--it's run by folks who court conservative votes and then stab them in the back, over and over. They have no intention whatsoever of sharing power with the folks who voted for them.
The party need to be cleaned out. So after 2006 I will be raising money and organizing to defeat the folks who brought us C and Pete Coors, one-by-one. Probably a quixotic gesture.
From last year...
What the Hell Happened in Colorado?
Why Republicans held the state for Bush and lost everything else on the ballot.
by John Andrews
12/07/2004
RED-STATE JOHNNIE HAS THE BLUES. Times are hard for Colorado Republicans, these days. Yes, we again carried Colorado for President Bush. With a GOP voter-registration edge of 186,000, we darn well should have. But that was all we did. Down-ballot, this was the ugliest election for Colorado Republicans that I've experienced in my 30 years in politics. And as president of Colorado's state Senate, I saw the devastation up-close.
While Republicans were winning U.S. Senate races from Florida to Alaska, netting a four-seat gain, Colorado lost a seat the party has held since 1995, when Ben Nighthorse Campbell crossed the aisle following the Gingrich sweep. Senator-elect Ken Salazar heads to Washington as one of the Democrats' only bright spots--along with Barrack Obama of Illinois--in a bleak, 44-seat minority.
While Republicans were picking up five seats in the U.S. House, boosted by Texas' hard-fought redistricting victory last year, we lost a western Colorado seat that should have been safe.
And if this weren't enough, Colorado was the only state to suffer a bicameral switch of legislative control in the last election. Democrats won seven seats in the Colorado House, and one in the state Senate, to grab a majority in both chambers for the first time since 1960.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/006osifb.asp