The big lie, and don’t say that you were not warned. Jon Caldara may have led the charge, but the soldiers of economic freedom were slaughtered at the polls by leftest lies. Want some proof? Read on…
During a Joint Budget Committee presentation before the House Agriculture Committee last week, legislators were discussing the state’s budgetary woes. As it often happens under the Capitol dome, conversations about the budget inevitably lead to questions about Referendum C.
PommerState of Colo.
Specifically, people want to know what happened to the billions of dollars that filled state coffers as a result of the statewide measure passing in 2005.
When voters approved Referendum C by 52 percent, they did so based on promises that the estimated $3.7 billion generated over the next five years would be used to fund higher education, health care, and transportation. Voters were also told they were fixing a “glitch” in the state’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, a 1992 constitutional amendment that limited annual growth in government spending.
So we were shocked to hear JBC vice-chairman Rep. Jack Pommer, D-Boulder, assert during last week’s discussion that “Ref C wasn’t designed to fix anything,” and that “Ref C was an arbitrary amount of money.” (Click the player above to hear the audio yourself.) Pommer went on to admit that just last year the CEOs of higher education were asking “what happened to our money?” He told them revenue from Referendum C was just to keep them from “shutting down.”
Calls to Pommer went unreturned before press time.
We’re not sure if Pommer is just exercising selective memory or if that’s truly the way he sees it, but Referendum C was very much sold to the public as a way to fix the budget. And the measure was not an “arbitrary” amount of money. State estimates pegged the new revenue at $3.7 billion, but it has brought in nearly double that amount. Not a small chunk of change.
We would hope a member of the powerful JBC, the vice-chairman no less, would know better.
Note: The first voice in the audio clip is that of Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Yuma, who asks a question then answered by Pommer.
Tags: Independence Institute, Jon Caldara, News, Politics, Ref C, TABOR
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