To Grover Norquist (who will be contributing to this book club) and his lobbying organization Americans for Tax Reform, the “holy grail” is a state constitutional amendment approved by the voters of Colorado in 1992. Dubbed TABOR – for Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights – the amendment among other things restricts state revenues to the level of the previous year, plus the rate of population growth and inflation. Any excess tax collections over that threshold during times of prosperity must be refunded back to taxpayers. When times are bad and tax payments fall short of that year’s limit, legislators have no option but to cut the budget unless they receive approval from voters for a tax increase. That reduced revenue level during a recession in turn constitutes the new, lower baseline for the following year – creating a further tightening of the budget called the “ratchet effect.” The purported benefits of the TABOR law in the eyes of Norquist and his followers is that it will produce stability, tax relief, and economic growth without unduly reducing essential state services.

It’s the holy grail because even among simplistic conservative ideas, this one is the most simple. If you want small, efficient government, just pass an amendment that says it has to be small and efficient.

One of the chapters in The Conservatives Have No Clothes: Why Right-Wing Ideas Keep Failing tells the story of what happened in Colorado under TABOR. The bottom line is pretty straightforward. By virtually every ranking imaginable related to government performance, the state with the tenth highest median household income plummeted to the very bottom of the pack, competing with Mississippi and other poor southern states for last place. With respect to health care, TABOR caused Colorado drop below at least 45 other states in the share of low-income residents covered by Medicaid, the portion of low-income children lacking health care coverage, and the percentage of low-income adults under 65 without health insurance. Colorado’s national ranking in access to prenatal care declined from twenty-third in 1990 to forty-eighth in 2004.

How about education? Classroom sizes in Colorado escalated primarily because of TABOR so that student-teacher ratios in Colorado – one of the most prosperous states in the country – were worse than in all but eight states. The ratio of teacher salaries to average private sector earnings is lower in Colorado than in any other state. As for higher education, total state support to colleges and universities grew at the second lowest rate in the nation, so that now Colorado ranks forty-eighth for state higher education funding as a share of personal income.

Underlying the avalanches in state rankings under TABOR are endless stories of pain – avoidable pain induced by the amendment – inflicted on residents of the state. Just a few of the examples from the chapter:

• Colorado ranks sixth worst among the states in deliveries of low birthweight babies. Although TABOR was not the only factor contributing to the increase, it clearly prevented the state from acting effectively to reverse the negative trends. For example, the state initially responded in 1996 by creating the Prenatal Plus Program, but inadequate state funding forced a number of its clinics to drop the program. In 2004, the state imposed a rule change – ostensibly aimed at preventing illegal immigrants from receiving Medicaid coverage but also intended to save the state money – that ended the practice of initially presuming eligibility for pregnant women when they sought prenatal care. Instead of health care providers being assured of state reimbursements regardless of whether a patient is ultimately verified to be eligible, typically after a period of up to three months, they became responsible for bearing the financial risk for treating patients determined to be ineligible for Medicaid. The policy led some health care providers to stop treating uninsured women altogether and discouraged some women from seeking care. Testifying before a state congressional committee, Dr. Steve Volin of the Women’s Health Group said, “We are seeing patients much, much later in the course of their prenatal care. They’re not coming in until their Medicaid is approved, because they know they’ll be financially responsible if they’re not approved.” In one publicized case, a pregnant Colorado woman who was eligible for Medicaid but never received prenatal care because she wasn’t sure if she would qualify for coverage, lost her baby at 37 weeks of gestation. And she ultimately turned out to have been eligible for coverage.
• Colorado ranked last among all states in vaccinations for 2-year-olds in 2002 and 2003, with coverage rates of just 63 percent in 2002 and 68 percent in 2003; its ranking increased to 44th in 2004. Medicaid coverage and state funding for health are not the only factors determining immunization rates, and Colorado tracked just below the national average until 2002. But TABOR was clearly responsible for the state’s decision to suspend its requirement that students be fully vaccinated against diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis (whooping cough) between April 2001 and October 2002. During that period, a national shortage of the vaccine led most states to purchase higher-priced vaccines with state funds. The Colorado legislature, though, decided it couldn’t afford to take the same steps. The incidence in Colorado of whooping cough, which is life threatening in children under six months, began to soar well ahead of the national average in 2002 and has continued to increase. In 2005, more cases of whooping cough were reported in Colorado than in any other state. A report by the Colorado Institute of Health indicated that there is likely a connection between the state’s relatively low vaccination rate against whooping cough and its vulnerability to outbreaks of the disease.
• In 2004, Superintendent Emily Romero of the Centennial R-1 School District in Southern Colorado asked for $11.5 million for a new school to replace one that had fallen into complete disrepair. Sewage spilled into the hallways. Because some classrooms have no ventilation, temperatures can run 80 to 90 degrees in the winter. But the state didn’t provide a cent for capital improvements to the district, where more than 70 percent of the students qualify for free- or reduced-price lunches. “I’m disappointed that they’re willing to put us on the back burner,” Romero said. “Kids in affluent communities wouldn’t ever go to school here. No parent would allow their kids to attend school with sewage in the hallway.” The explanation from Nancy Spence, the Republican state legislator from Centennial: “The fact is, the state doesn’t have any money.”

The fundamental problem with TABOR is that the costs that dominate state budgets, particularly health care and education, rise much more rapidly than overall inflation for a variety of reasons. That’s true for the private sector as well as government. Imposing an inflation-plus-population growth cap on tax revenues available to pay for public outlays puts legislators in a vise that they are powerless to break. Of course, that’s exactly the idea. TABOR essentially short-circuits the power of public officials to govern.

The voters of Colorado finally rebelled against TABOR in 2005, passing a referendum that allows the state to spend all the revenues it collects at current rates for five years, even if they exceed TABOR’s limits. It sure sounds like TABOR is a bad idea, right? But Norquist and Americans for Tax Reform, along with a variety of other conservative groups that received funding from the same collection of family foundations that have supported movement conservatism, are continuing to peddle TABOR throughout the country. In 2006, sixteen state legislators introduced tax and expenditure limits akin to TABOR. Ohio’s legislature ended up adopting a less restrictive statutory measure, though the other efforts failed. The voters of Maine, Nebraska, and Oregon rejected TABOR referenda. But the right's campaign goes on.

Nowhere has a conservative owned up to the obvious. Even if you believe the argument that legislators aren’t trying hard enough to cut the fat, you still have to admit that TABOR hasn’t accomplished what its supporters continue to promise what it will do: force legislators to cut the fat. Muscle, bones, and organs, yes, but somehow not the fat.