13issues.com is a nonpartisan website on all 13 Colorado ballot issues. It explains simply this year’s record number of state questions.
Along with a one-page voter guide, it has three essays on major ballot issues. Amendments Y and Z have been promoted by $5.4 million-plus in campaign donations. Two donations of one million each were made by two billionaires, plus $605,000 by a Texas PAC, $500,000 by former mayor Michael Bloomberg in New York, and $500,000 by a D.C. lobbyist; do you know why? An essay explains how Y and Z help gerrymandering and secret motives for those gifts.
Y and Z are frauds.
An essay on question 73 exposes the massive tax increase pushed by government unions. State taxes would rise $1.6 billion or more every year, forever – a 16 percent increase in the general fund budget. For 100,000 employees, pay raises average $16,000 each, not based on merit. People are unaware most school employees are not teachers, but administrators and support staff. Not one dollar goes “for the kids.”
Both questions 109 and 110 violate the state constitution. Since 1876, the Colorado Constitution has banned huge state debt (Article XI, sections 3, 4, and 5).
If you really want to work “for the kids,” vote against 20-year debts which must be repaid with $1.7 billion in interest and $3.4 billion in interest. Those billions build no roads.
Excess spending and lack of fiscal discipline will be repaid by your children and grandchildren. That is “fiscal child abuse.”
Douglas Bruce
Colorado Springs
