Surprising no one, they’re back at it again. Democrats in the state legislature have announced they’ll be running a bill to place a referendum on the 2026 ballot to take away our TABOR refunds. It’s not like this hasn’t been tried before. Voters’ preferences are clear, but the liberals see m to purposely misunderstand. What’s more, they seem to enjoy losing. In 2019, the legislature made a similar attempt with Prop CC. Voters shot it down by seven percentage points. In 2023, they tried again with Prop HH and lost by an embarrassing 19-point margin.  Coloradans don’t agree on everything, but we do love our Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights. Various polls show support for TABOR remains high across the political spectrum – consistently coming from Republicans, Democrats, and unaffiliated voters. One poll reported that 70% of Coloradans want to keep TABOR in place. It’s probably the most popular constitutional amendment we have, and certainly the one that best showcases what it means to be a Coloradan. Shockingly, people actually like to cap government spending, vote on tax increases, and they like their tax refunds even more. In a December 2025 poll, only 26% of respondents thought that “Colorado should remove its TABOR law because it prevents the state from adequately funding schools, roads, and healthcare.” Only 26%. That’s barely a quarter of the electorate — not exactly a winning majority. Even some Colorado Democrats have acknowledged that voters love their TABOR refunds and that the people have a right to those refunds. When he sent refund checks to Coloradans right before his 2022 reelection, Gov. Jared Polis said it’s “your money” and personally signed the checks. He has also referred to the refunds as “keeping more money in the pocket of hardworking Coloradans.” State Rep. Ruby Dickson said that TABOR refunds “benefit[] millions of people throughout our state.” Speaker of the House Julie McCluskie said that TABOR was “enshrined by the public through a vote.” State Sen. Janice Marchman said her bill to equalize TABOR refunds would “get money back into the pockets of hardworking Coloradans,” continuing: “At a time when workers, families and seniors are pinched by inflation, this will be hundreds of dollars more to help pay for necessities like groceries, gas, and housing.” And yet, the legislative proposal — reportedly being spearheaded by state Sen. and treasurer candidate Jeff Bridges — will go after TABOR refunds anyway. It’s being sold as a way to pay for education even though that’s only a tiny part of what the increased spending would do. This time, as with Prop HH in 2023, the formula being proposed would virtually eliminate TABOR refunds forever. It might make state officials breathe a sigh of relief, but it would force the average Colorado family to tighten their own budgets even more — and this at a time when Colorado is already the third most expensive state in the nation. As noted in news reports, Bridges’ measure would increase the TABOR cap by $4.5 billion, permanently. Education funding would receive an additional 2% every year. Apparently, the Colorado Education Association’s support can be bought with pennies on the dollar because while the state won’t have a surplus of $4.5 billion next year, if it did, education would receive only $90 million of it. This reveals the true intent of the bill sponsors: create a slush fund for state government. And, try to use anyone sympathetic to kids and their education in the process.  Notably, bill sponsors haven’t indicated any other designated purpose for the rest of the $4.5 billion. Education gets its (very tiny) piece of the pie, and everything else is up to the whims of the politicians in charge. Who knows what extra pet projects they’ll choose to fund or what programs will rise to the top of their wish list in any given year. But, as proposed, the spending is entirely up to them. If they put this measure on the ballot, they’ll try to convince you that it’s all for the kids. In reality, it’s all for the government. It’s fair to acknowledge that the extra $4.5 billion is unlikely to be reached in the near future, and certainly not next year. There are always years when taxpayers receive $0 in TABOR refunds because the state doesn’t collect any extra revenue. Due to Colorado’s sluggish and sliding economy and bad business policies, TABOR refunds don’t look promising in the near future. But, this bill would ensure that as soon as Colorado turns the corner, it’s the government that will reap the benefits, not the taxpayers. If this passes on the ballot in 2026, don’t expect to ever see a TABOR refund again. In state history, the largest TABOR refund ever given out was $3.7 billion — back in 2023. This proves that setting a $4.5 billion cap — nearly $1 billion more than the biggest refund Colorado has ever returned to the people — ensures that we will likely never receive a TABOR check again. Any amount of extra money collected by the state, up to that amount, will go into the legislature’s slush fund instead of our pockets. And this at a time when the state budget is already growing by $2 billion per year and 76% over the last decade, constantly outpacing wage growth. The creation of a government slush fund in this proposal mirrors the multiple ballot measures filed by Bell Policy Institute in their attempts to put a progressive income tax on the ballot. So far, they’ve been unsuccessful at the Title Board, but the intent of their repetitive measures is clear: raise taxes, take businesses out of Colorado, and hand over unaccountable money to the state. Apparently, the liberal collective has decided that running a measure through the legislature is an easier route to the ballot. It’s not hard to see the underlying intent here: make the people pay when the state overspends. This is always the predictable liberal solution to an over-leveraged budget: take more from the people instead of doing the work to make the hard cuts. Make the people pay for the politicians’ budgeting errors.  Every Colorado family knows what it’s like to cut back in hard times, but state legislators are so resistant to that idea they just have to propose another ballot measure to ask you to hand over your hard-earned cash. Rather than reining in spending, re-crafting programs, cutting waste, and stopping their propensity to overcommit funds they don’t have, legislators would rather launch an attack on TABOR refunds again. It’s a predictable strategy, and it won’t end well. Kristi Burton Brown is executive vice president of Advance Colorado. ...read more read less