In 1992 voters enacted the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights to constrain the growth of government by requiring voter approval for tax increases. Since then, the state government has built a new structure to avoid that requirement.
The creation of TABOR-exempt state-owned “enterprises” has allowed government to increase fees from 46% of total state spending in 1996 to 71% of state spending in 2023 without requiring approval from taxpayers, according to a new report released by the Common Sense Institute, a non-partisan research organization “dedicated to the protection and promotion of Colorado’s economy.”
“Fees are a rapidly growing and significant cost for Coloradans,” said Kelly Caufield, Executive Director of the Common Sense Institute. “At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if we call it a tax or a fee, these costs are driving the cost of living in our state.”
Legislators have been shifting more and more of the state’s revenue dependence away from tax increases, which voters have mostly kept in close check by refusing to approve them, to fee-based enterprises not subject to TABOR, says the report.