While Amendment 87’s proponents claim to fight for “tax fairness,” progressive media double standards and government favoritism give the measure an unfair advantage on the November ballot.
Amendment 87 replaces Colorado’s flat 4.4% income tax with multiple new progressive brackets, topping out at 8.4%.
Colorado Sun tax calculator
For weeks, the left-leaning Colorado Sun has featured a tax calculator on its front page that shows how one’s effective tax burden would change under Amendment 87’s six new brackets.
Apparently, it is now good to show people how much money some get to keep when they get a modest tax break, so long as the state government gets more money in the long run.
Neither the Sun nor other media outlets featured similar calculators for Independence Institute’s Propositions 116 or 121, which lowered Colorado’s flat tax rate for everyone, not that they needed the help as both passed easily.
Instead, the Sun frames the tax cuts as at least partially to blame for Colorado’s budget challenges, rather than the state’s overspending and favoring of special interests.
But more importantly, nowhere on or around the calculator does it mention that Amendment 87’s tax brackets are not indexed to inflation, a major oversight that severely weakens the “tax cut” argument.
In other words, the calculator is really only a short-term snapshot of people’s tax burdens, even though Amendment 87 is permanent.
Over time, the measure’s small tax cuts would actually shrink, and Coloradans’ tax burdens would eventually increase as inflation pushes up incomes, because the brackets are fixed at nominal levels.
Without that disclaimer, it might seem like 87 deserves a clear yes vote for many Coloradans, rather than the well-deserved skepticism it should receive based on the complete picture.
Unfortunately but unsurprisingly, we cannot expect most journalists to speak with much authority on economics, even though they can be influential in these conversations.
Blue Book barely mentions bracket creep
What is less excusable is the framing of Amendment 87 by the legislature’s analysts, who should certainly know better.
Amazingly, the very first draft of the Blue Book analysis for Amendment 87 (then Initiative 195) did not even acknowledge the bracket creep problem—something that should be obvious in any conversation about progressive taxes.
Further, despite Independence Institute’s extensive comments on all drafts of the analysis about the importance of including more information about bracket creep, the final Blue Book draft added only one brief sentence in the analysis and one in the ‘arguments against’ section.
If non-meticulous voters happen to miss the first sentence about bracket creep in the analysis, it would be unsurprising if they take the statement in the ‘against’ section as more opinion than fact, as arguments for and against tend to leave more room for editorializing.
It cannot be stressed enough how detrimental Amendment 87 could be for long-term taxes and the economy, and how bracket creep is a key reason for that.
Yet the Blue Book analysts did not think it was worth expounding on, even though it is their job to help voters understand what they are signing up for.
Whether this stemmed from economic ignorance, apathy, or (hopefully not) malice, it raises serious concerns and dangerous implications for legislative analyses and fiscal notes in general.
Amendment 87 is clearly being buttressed by incomplete arguments in the media and by the legislature, whether intentionally or not.
Unfortunately, Colorado taxpayers will live with the consequences.
Nash Herman is a fiscal policy analyst at Independence Institute, a free market think tank in Denver
