State Rep. Frank Lasee, R-Bellevue, introduced the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights for Wisconsin in the Legislature Friday for the fourth time.
TABOR is the proposal to write government-spending limits into the constitution.
The legislation would cap increases in taxes and government spending at the current levels and any increase in spending or taxes would have to be approved by a public referendum.
Wisconsin has considered TABOR in the past, but in order for a constitutional amendment to become a law, it must pass two consecutive legislative sessions and face a statewide referendum.
TABOR received much criticism during recent years, and Lasee has made multiple revisions. Advocates of TABOR are hopeful for more support with the re-introduction of the bill.
“One of the big differences this time is simply that we have so many more co-sponsors and we’ve got members of leadership who are co-sponsoring it,” Lance Burri, an aid to Lasee, said. “They are throwing their support to it before it gets assigned to a committee. That is a good sign. It is a good reason to be optimistic.”
In April, Lasee made several changes that included allowing governments the choice to reinstate the previous year’s spending limits. This would prevent one year’s revenue shortfall from affecting future budgets.
Lasee also created a provision allowing the government to put excess revenue into a fund for use in case of shortfalls.
Some legislators criticized TABOR by citing it would severely hurt state programs. Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle also expressed his dislike of the bill since its creation.
“We don’t think TABOR is the answer to Wisconsin’s too-high taxes,” Doyle’s Spokesperson Melanie Fonder said. “That is why the governor proposed a responsible balanced budget that doesn’t raise taxes and that includes a responsible property tax raise.”
Fonder says TABOR would be devastating for local services, and that similar programs in other states have shown negative impacts on public education.
Burri, however, says that TABOR will not take funding away from state programs.
“Funding won’t be cut. TABOR is not a spending limit, it’s a spending increase limit,” Burri said. “Spending is limited to inflation plus growth. It is not true that we will have to cut spending; we’ll have to spend more every year.”
Burri cites Colorado, which currently has TABOR written into the constitution, and says their spending per student grew in the ’90s faster than any other state.
The Colorado Legislature passed the constitutional amendment in 92. Fonder says the passing of the legislation proved problematic for program funding in the state.”We think that TABOR has been devastating for Colorado,” Fonder said. “We certainly think it could be devastating for local services like police as well as schools [in Wisconsin].”
According to Lasee’s weekly column “Lasee’s notes,” 27 other states have a type of taxing or spending limits. Of those states, 17 have constitutional limits. A handful of states also have referendums to raise general taxes.
