Two questions on our November ballot would end tax policies that have served Colorado well for more than 30 years.

Amendment 87 seeks to replace Colorado’s simple, flat-rate income tax with a progressive tax that raises your rate as your income grows.

Proposition NN would raise the state’s constitutional spending limit so high state government won’t be required to refund statewide over-collections anytime in the foreseeable future.

Together, these two measures essentially play Colorado voters for suckers, suggesting yet again that politicians need our hard-earned money more than we do. Worse still, lawmakers would be rewarded for rapidly expanding social welfare entitlements while struggling to meet bare minimums for K-12 education.

In 1987, Colorado instituted a simple, flat-rate income tax, signed into law by Democratic Governor Roy Romer and passed by a Republican legislature. For every dollar of taxable income, both individuals and businesses pay 4.4 percent in state income tax.

Amendment 87 would change that by giving a very small reduction – $325 at most – to taxpayers earning less than $100,000. Rates stay the same for income between $100,000 and $500,000, and increase drastically on higher incomes to as much as 8.4 percent.

Here’s what they don’t tell you: these rates are never adjusted for inflation.

If your family income is $75,000 today, in ten years it will need to be $100,000 just to keep up with inflation. Most Colorado workers also get raises for seniority and promotions.

But remember Amendment 87 only gives a $325 tax cut on the first $100,000. Proponents certainly know that households making under $100,000 are a declining share of Colorado’s population.

So everyone’s taxes will go up with inflation.

While proponents talk about “taxing the wealthy,” they ignore that businesses are taxed at the same rates as individuals. A business with taxable income of $1 million is likely your home-owned local store, but in just one year, it’s taxes will increase by $15,925.

A big employer with $10 million in taxable income will see its tax bill jump by $375,925. That’s a loud signal to move jobs out of Colorado.

Next, Amendment 87 puts Colorado sports teams at a disadvantage against their competitors. Why play for the Broncos, Nuggets, Avalanche or Rockies and pay 8.4 percent tax, when you could sign with teams in Texas, Florida, Washington, Nevada or Tennessee which have no income tax at all?

Verse 2 in this sucker’s chorus is Prop NN which sings the familiar refrain, “Vote YES for the children!” This proposal from the legislature promises to increase funding for public schools by 2 percent per year for the next 10 years at a cost of roughly $240 million a year.

But now carefully read the deceptive wording of the ballot question: “Shall state investment in K-12 public education increase two percent each year … funded by raising the annual limit on state fiscal year spending only by the amount spent on K-12 education…” (italics added).

Most voters will assume that means raising the limit only by the extra amount needed to boost K-12 spending by 2 percent per year. Instead, lawmakers slipped in a different term, “the amount spent on K-12 education.” Not the extra amount, but the total amount.

So instead of raising the limit by $240 million, they want to raise the spending limit by $4.6 billion. That’s nearly 20 times more than needed and $4 billion a year more than the state currently collects.

Why? To make room for new the anticipated tax increase from Amendment 87 and to give the legislature even more room to raise “fees” without voter approval.

Legislators tried a similar bait-and-switch in 2023, offering voters a small property tax reduction in exchange for a $2 billion increase in the spending cap. Voters rejected that scheme 59 percent-41 percent.

The reality is Colorado state government has a spending problem – not a revenue problem. Lawmakers added 7,000 new state employees in the past eight years and extended Medicaid coverage to illegal immigrants and able-bodied adults.

Medicaid is now the largest department in the state budget, crowding out K-12 education. Why? Because legislators increased Medicaid spending by $7.8 billion in the past decade while spending on K-12 education grew by only $1.8 billion.

If lawmakers wanted to make public schools their priority, they have the money to do it. Instead, they’ve chosen to expand entitlements and grow state payrolls, then demand we pay more for schools.

Colorado’s budget “crisis” is a legislative fiction, created by deliberate choices, and backed by a bet that taxpayers will be suckers in November.

Mark Hillman served as Senate Majority Leader and State Treasurer. To read more or comment, go to www.MarkHillman.com.