State Representative
HD # 56 (R)
They fooled you once. Don’t let them fool you again!
In November you are going to see a ballot initiative called Proposition HH. It is nothing more than a scheme. A scheme designed to disguise your future Taxpayer Bill of Rights refund as government subsidized property tax relief.
Yes, Governor Polis and his swifty advisors are taking money out of one of your pockets and handing it back to you as property tax relief. Why not? It worked once before. Remember when he took your Taxpayer Bill of Rights refund, gave it to you early as inflation relief and called it Colorado Cash Back? It sounds like the government is giving you a gift doesn’t it? Nope, they took your money and handed it back to you. I’m sure he won votes with that scheme.
If you want to learn more about how the state government has been playing constituents as fools, I highly recommend that you go online to see the short videos from the Independence Institute’s property tax series by Ben Murrey. He lays everything out quite clearly.
In the meantime, I will briefly explain here:
In 2020 the legislature placed a measure on the ballot to eliminate the Gallagher Amendment. This amendment to our state constitution was the only thing that we had in place to protect homeowners from hyper-inflation. In order to entice you to vote for the measure, they had to manipulate the language. The ballot measure stated, “Without increasing your tax rate”. To many, that meant without raising your taxes. Of course, the measure was passed by the voters. Property values rose and taxes were bound to increase. Proper language for the ballot measure was originally proposed by staff but was later modified by legislative leadership.
As a current member of Colorado’s Joint Budget Committee, I saw early on that the big government legislators and the Governor were going to go after our Taxpayer Bill of Rights. Initially, they were going to tie their scheme to education. They know how strongly you feel about properly funding education.
Then the hyper-inflated property tax bills came out. With emotions high, voila! the shift was made to create Proposition HH. The shift was made so quickly that they had to cram this bill through the legislative process in the last three days of the session.
Why does the Governor and the big government legislators want to destroy the Taxpayer Bill of Rights? Because they do not want you to get used to refunds. Both the Legislative Council economist and the Governor’s own economist are predicting refunds into the next couple of years and beyond.
For thirty years, the Taxpayer Bill of rights has served us well. It has not financially constrained government as many have claimed. As a matter of fact, the Governor is now running around bragging how Colorado carries such strong reserves.
Now, let’s get to the fix. Instead of running another scheme, the Governor needs to call a special session of the legislature. One that deals with real property tax relief measures such as reducing the assessment rates. He knows that he and the big government legislators created this mess. Now they need to clean it up.
They fooled us once. Don’t let them fool us again.
Call the Governor’s office now (303) 866-2471.
Rod Bockenfeld is a Republican. He serves as a legislator in the Colorado House of Representatives and his district includes eastern Arapahoe County. He is also a member of the state’s Joint Budget and House Appropriations Committees. He previously served for 12 years as an Arapahoe County Commissioner.
Rod can be contacted at Rod@Bockenfeld.com.