Posted on 03/27/2005 10:53:33 AM PST by HostileTerritory
DENVER--Governor Bill Owens, a Republican, has been crisscrossing the country for years promoting the virtues of this state's strict constitutional limits on government spending. He has repeatedly urged other states to adopt restrictions of their own, based on Colorado's Taxpayer Bill of Rights amendment, known as TABOR.
But this summer, Owens says, he will traverse his own mountainous state pushing the opposite message. Midway through his second term, Owens is working to persuade Coloradans to suspend the limits he championed and let the state government spend $3 billion more in tax money than TABOR would allow.
Owens thus becomes another low-tax, limited-government advocate who has found those principles hard to hold onto amid a sluggish economy and a sharply diminished flow of federal money to the states.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
Because politicians have a conflict of interest with limited govt. That is why we had a Constitution. Both the executive and legislature had a party when judges threw it out, because they didn't want to do it themselves. Then they could blame the unelected and appointed for life judges. It is a great game in Washington. I feel sorry for the idiots who get caught up in Republican-Democrat fights not realizing that at their core both parties are the same pro-govt parties.
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As time progresses, it becomes more clear. A number of events, fostered and sanctioned by the present administration, prove the point.
Assume the worst -- upgraded pensions and bennies for government workers, and pet project boondoggles that repay cronies for their "support."
You could argue that Owens etal. are the "real" GOP in the year 2005....
Afterall, hasn't George W. Bush turned into Franklin Delano Roosevelt?
Slowing down the runaway train of spending is something we can live with.
Based upon the GOP's performance from top to bottom, none of these socialist-lite clowns appear to want to attempt being fiscally responsible.
Answer: It helps subsidize the GOP of Colorado's Goobermint end-of-year Christmas Party.
GOP Governors Fight Tax Limits
" During the boom years of the 1990s, with population and personal income soaring, the limits worked well. But the economic downturn and the reduction in federal support during the first Bush term proved disastrous for Colorado's finances. The state put off building roads and maintaining infrastructure. It reduced services and raised fees. Spending on higher education fell so sharply that the president of the University of Colorado declared the flagship state school a "private enterprise."
Voters grew increasingly angry and demanded changes from Owens and the Republican-controlled legislature. But GOP leaders refused to act. "So long as I am governor, we will not raise taxes," Owens pledged in 2003.
Last fall, the Democratic Party launched a statewide campaign against the TABOR [Taxpayer Bill of Rights] limits -- and scored a huge victory at the polls. While Bush was easily carrying the state, Democrats took control of the state House and Senate."
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
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