It has now been 25 years since Colorado voters passed TABOR, and Colorado is a much different place (we are seeing 100,000 new transplants to Colorado each year). While TABOR may have made sense for the Colorado of 1992, today its funding formulas are outdated.

Since 1992, because of TABOR, the State has been required to return small checks, in amounts of about $10 to $15 per person, to the taxpayers. This has slowly added up to over $2 billion we could have invested in making Colorado stronger for everyone. Funding that could have gone toward supporting our schools, repairing our roads, and modernizing our infrastructure. Currently, again thanks to outdated policies like TABOR, over 50 percent of our school districts—primarily in rural communities—operate for only four days a week. This is in Colorado. In the United States of America. In the 21st Century. This is not who we are.

That’s why I’m proposing TABOR 2.0. Within the first two years of my administration I will ask the voters to remove the outdated spending formulas from TABOR, while keeping in place citizens’ right to vote on any new taxes. As I travel around our state, people tell me they are ready to have an honest conversation about the challenges we face. I know we can make commonsense fixes here. If we show the public we want to be accountable, and that we can have reasonable reforms that make sense for a modern Colorado, we can do it.