Take the time to read what a supporter of Polis' property tax plan says. When you ram policy down people's throats, expect lawsuits. And, because it's Friday, espalier pear.
Posted in the interest of balance.
I have posted a considerable amount on Polis' turd of a property tax reduction scheme. I will post more on it as the election approaches (and as the lawsuit against it makes its way through our courts--though I'm not holding my breath for our state's progressive rubberstamp Supreme Court to do anything other than forward it along to the ballot), so I won't run through it again here.
What I want to do with this post is to show you some of the counterarguments, some of the perspectives of the people who support the Democrats' proposition. The article linked below gives a perfect opportunity.
One of the primary arguments against this measure if the idea that a yes vote will effectively permanently end TABOR refunds because it gives a discount on property taxes but does so by raising the TABOR refund cap every year. If you extrapolate into the future, the argument goes, this one percent increase in the TABOR cap eventually means that the TABOR cap will grow so large that there will never be a surplus large enough again to give a refund.
I.e. you'll be letting the government keep more and more of your money until they're keeping it all, all the time.
Let me quote from the article below by way of counterpoint.
"A forecast by legislative analysts says under the plan, TABOR refunds would decrease by $167 million in fiscal year 2023-24 and by $358.6 million in the next year. Analysts did not provide an estimate for the out years, but they noted, in a separate forecast, a predictably more stable economic outlook in the next few years.
Scott Wasserman, president of the Bell Policy Center, which advocated for SB 303's passage, did not dispute a scenario under which rebates won't land in Coloradans' mail boxes, such as in a recessionary economy when the revenue dips below the cap.
But there's a lot of unknown about future TABOR surpluses, he said.
'Because all of this is based on the economy,' Wasserman told Colorado Politics, 'we have no way of knowing if we’ll be above or below the TABOR cap 10 years from now. We also don’t know how large surpluses will be.'
'Five years ago, I would have dismissed the idea that we’d be looking at $2 billion plus surpluses. Today, that’s being taken for granted and treated likes it’s a given,' he said.
And the rebates, he said, 'have never been a given.'
'In fact, they’re a pretty recent phenomenon. We’ve had a great many years under the existing cap in which none occurred,' he said.
Wasserman also raised another point: Under a recessionary scenario, that one percentage point increase in the cap would look a lot different than in a growing economy.
'That’s why' he said, 'I don’t think we should assume year over year compounding like you’re describing with that 10% figure. Over the next 10 years, we’ll definitely see at least one recession, and that will change what 1% of the previous year’s spending means.'
Wasserman said from 2000 to 2010, the country had two recessions, one small and one big, significantly altering states' spending and revenues.
Wasserman also pushed back at the points raised by Fields and Murrey.
"The rhetoric on the conservative side is off the hook,' he said. 'Rebates are not disappearing any time soon, if at all. In fact, many people will be seeing property tax relief AND TABOR rebate checks.'"
As much as it pains to admit it, Mr. Wasserman is right. The figure that your TABOR refund will disappear in 10 years is based on an assumption which may or may not be what actually happens. TABOR refunds are also not a given; they are monies we're owed only if the government takes in extra money as defined by the formula in the amendment (a formula based on population and inflation growth).
There you have it, this is how a proponent of this measure would see things. Whether you agree or not**, it's important to read up and pay attention to how other people see things, even if it's for no other reason than knowing how to refute their arguments.
**My response, put here separately to maintain the character of pausing to consider someone else's arguments. Mr. Wasserman's correctness notwithstanding, I would still rather have the chance at a refund than not; I really don't know that I care whether or not it takes 7 years, 10 years, or 15 years to edge them out, you and I both know that once the Assembly gets the nod to increase the TABOR cap, they will vote to do so over and over again until they keep all our money (Polis' measure has a sunset clause where the TABOR cap increase is put up for a vote every 10 years).
After all, how many times in your life have you had a politician willfully hand you back your money if they can keep it?
Suing to stop public sector unions.
Perhaps it's just because it's more in the news and I'm paying attention more (nothing the media likes more than controversy), but it strikes me that we're having more and more lawsuits against Democrat policy in Colorado.
Whether there are actually more, I'm not 100% on, but I am not surprised. What other recourse would you have if you were in the political minority in a region and the majority went out of its way to make sure you were not included? When party roles have been reversed, this was the case then too.
We can add another one to the pile and that is El Paso County suing the state over the law (from the 2022 Assembly session) that allowed for public sector unions. A story is linked below with more detail if you want it.
Don't expect a whole lot of detail (yet) on the lawsuit, however. There is no official filing as of this post that I could find and the allegations made feel to me like they're all over the map: accusations and claims flew left and right in the article.
If and when there's an update to share, I'll update.
https://www.cpr.org/2023/05/16/el-paso-commissioners-sue-to-stop-public-sector-unions-law/
Notes on year two of making my pears into cordon espalier.
Last one of the day and you know what that means: something fun and not related to politics.
It'll also be the last one for a day, I'm going to be away from my computer tomorrow.
I have written in the past about trying to set up some espaliered pear trees. Last year, I had my bosc pear die (well, "never grew much and got an infection so I removed it" would be more accurate), but the d'anjou lived and overwintered just fine.
The d'anjou came out of dormancy and has, as is often the case with perennials, just been growing like gangbusters in year 2.
I got a new bosc and it's starting its training now.
There is an interesting overlap between training for espalier and the cane bending I am going to do with the blackberries this year, and I thought I would share because it's an interesting note about plant behavior.
Plants know what direction is up and what is down. When a part of a plant that should otherwise be vertical is bent down, the plant senses this and dispatches hormones to either right the stem or make new stems that go up.
That's the theory behind bending and tying blackberry canes horizontally. The plant senses it, and, since it can't push the canes back up, will send up vertical shoots. Since each shoot should in theory have a flower, I should get more berries (we'll see--I'll update after trying).
I finally found a resource on espalier that made sense to me and gave specifics. While I read it, my brain was connecting back to the blackberries because this way of training uses some of the same theory.
Take a look at pic 1 attached. It's the new bosc beginning its training. I topped the tree at the second wire and bent the nearby branch up and tied it to the vertical bamboo. The two branches I will (eventually) put along the middle wire are tied to bamboos which go off at a 45 degree angle.
According to what I've read, you don't want to bend branches horizontally immediately because it will slow their growth. I.e. the plant will sense that the branch isn't vertical and will slow its growth. So, the branch I want to become a new vertical, I tie vertically to encourage it to grow up and become a new stem while the branches that I will train horizontally are at an angle now so as to not have them stop growing. When the tree stops making new growth in late July, I will bend down the diagonals and tie them to the middle wire since they won't grow anymore regardless.
Not following this protocol won't be fatal. I immediately tied the d'anjou to its wires when I got it last year and its still alive. I think that it will just reach full size and maturity faster if I am more careful.
Speaking of the d'anjou, it's growing a lot and (as is common with espalier trees apparently) shooting up all kinds of verticals all over the place. I took a picture of it and attached as picture #2.
According to the same reference I used to start the bosc, for trees that are already started, these spouts are common (especially on the top tier). The spouts aren't harmful, but unsightly and I'd rather have branch growth.
I suppose I could cut them, but that would be a big stress to the tree and having lots of open stems would be a big risk of infection or other trouble. So, I followed the advice from the same reference and have bent the spouts into a U and tied them tip-down. See pics #3 and #4.
With the tips down, the growth should be minimized. I'll nip them off after the tree has ended its growth for the year, just like with the bosc.
I'm excited to learn and watch the trees as they take shape and eventually start making fruit, but I can already tell that I've bought myself a fair bit of maintenance here.
Ah well, it'll keep me outta the bars.
That's it for the week, have a good Friday and back at it Sunday!