DENVER – The growing division among Colorado Democrats just got wider, with the party’s top elected official urging a no vote on a progressive income tax initiative backed by the state party, and a yes vote on another tax initiative progressives heavily oppose.
On his Facebook page recently, Gov. Jared Polis gave his recommendations for many of the questions on this year’s lengthy November ballot. His recommendations for Amendment 87 and Proposition 136, however, were in stark opposition to that of most of his fellow Democrats.
On Amendment 87, the graduated tax question, Polis urged a no vote:
“This is a $2.7 billion dollar tax increase (more than all the other tax increases on the ballot combined) and a HUGE blank check to politicians,” he said. “This tax hike would make us the 9th highest tax state in the country and would cripple our economy and reduce jobs and for workers. Most of the new taxes would fall on small and mid-size businesses, not the wealthy, Vote NO.”
And to Proposition 136, which would cap the current flat income tax rate at its existing 4.4%, Polis – who has long advocated getting rid of income taxes altogether – urged a yes vote:
“This makes it harder for tricky politicians to raise our taxes above the current rate and would make sure any tax increase would have to come back for a vote,” he said.
It didn’t take long before the post blew up. With nearly 1,500 comments at the time this story was published.
“87 will literally lower your income tax if you make less than 1M dollars a year. Who tf is making more than $1M a year in CO? Only 3% of Coloradans!!” one commenter wrote, to which Polis replied:
“(copied verbatim) One million is a ton for an individual to earn, but the fatal flaw with this intuitive is it doubles the tax on all businesses and a business making a million, or ten million, is a small or mid size business. Big billion dollar businesses often have loopholes and pay a lower rate, it this proposal punishes small and mid size businesses who play by the rules and pay their taxes and it doubles their taxes which means less raises, less hiring, and higher prices.”
Not everyone disagreed with him, however, with at least one commenter praising his insight.
“You are not toeing the party line on this,” the comment read. “Well done on that alone. We aren’t in full alignment, but I have to respect someone making their own recommendations not based on what the party tells them to do. I voted yes on everything that kept power with the people and no on everything that gave power to legislators. We got close.”
