Colorado voters reject raising taxes to support education

[Newsjock]

Source: Los Angeles Times

In what could be a harbinger of the 2012 election, Colorado voters Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected a measure that would have raised nearly $3 billion for education by temporarily increasing state income, sales and use taxes.

With 59% of the projected vote counted, Proposition 103 was trailing 65% to 35%, the Associated Press reported.

... If Proposition 103 had passed, individual and corporate tax rates would have temporarily jumped from 4.63% to 5% and the sales and use tax rate from 2.9% to 3%, the Associated Press reported.

... The measure's supporters were better funded than its critics, but they were frustrated by tepid support from top Democrats, including new Gov. John Hickenlooper, who said he would not back any tax hikes during his first year in office, the Associated Press reported.

Read more: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2011/11/colorado-voters-reject-higher-taxes-education.html

[DavidDvorkin]

1. For a while, I had my hopes up for 103

And also for 300, the Denver one to require that everyone employed in the city get a minimum of five days sick leave.

There was heavy advertising against both 103 and 300. Denver's new mayor appeared in the anti-300 ads.

My candidate for the at-large school board seat lost, too.

This was not a good outcome for students, teachers, or working people in general. The corporate toadies and charter school lovers are probably delighted, though.

[earthside]

2. 103 was bad.

For instance the Brighton school district just gave up $235 million in tax incentives to lure a big entertainment-hotel corporation into the area.

Because school funding in Colorado has to be equalized, all the rest of us taxpayers will have to make up the difference that Brighton gave away.

'Education' dollars going through the backdoor for corporate welfare.

I voted against 103 for that reason.

And, in any event, I will not vote for anymore regressive sale tax increases that hurt the poor and unemployed and seniors, etc. -- as long as we have a flat income tax in Colorado where I pay the same rate as John Elway and the Coors family.

[TwilightGardener]

3. dupe

[TwilightGardener]

4. Of course. The whole country is trending anti-teacher, anti-child and anti-education.

And of course, anti-tax. Where I live, the retirees and elderly were particularly resentful of a bond issue to pay for new classrooms and a pool. "Because we swam in the quarry pit, and we LIKED IT that way!!" No lie, there was a letter to the editor from lady who thought our high school students should go all creative and "MacGyver" and build themselves a science lab, and hold car washes and shit to pay for lab equipment. The fact that they want TAXPAYERS to build them a science lab just galls her.

[boppers]

6. A pool? Seriously?

face+palm

Yeah, that's a bit of an over-reach. That's a cost for a luxury sport, not an education.

As far as building a science lab, that would actually be one hell of a science education, to learn how all of the expensive "education" high-school science equipment is really stuff a decent tech/vocational school can build from raw materials on the cheap.

Of course, this assumes that the school district has a decent tech/voc school, and the little darlings can be trained to make, oh, a bunsen burner, or harvest radioactive materials from junkyards, etc.

[TwilightGardener]

7. I'm sorry, I don't know if you're being sarcastic or serious about the pool--

our high school has no pool and no auditorium. This is not a small rural district, this is a very large middle-to-upper middle class district--they built the high school a decade or so ago, ran out of funds to finish it and bond issues have been rejected twice now. When I attended high school, I had a pool. I thought all big high schools had them. This one was to be open to the community (no community pool here), not just the students.

[boppers]

8. A bit of both (sarcastic/serious).

I attended 3 high schools in my life.

None of them, not a single one, had a school pool.

The largest school of those 3 had 3,000 students (what counts as a "big high school"?), and no pool.

That school also did not have a polo field, or a yacht club, or rugby grounds, or a rowing club (with indoor training pool), either.

All 3 were in a landlocked state, with lots of desert and prairie and mountains (Arizona). Like Colorado.

[TwilightGardener]

9. LOL--I don't equate swimming with rugby, rowing, etc. Most communities have a pool--

even very small communities.

[YvonneCa]

10. No. Most big high schools do not...

...have a pool. Many don't even have decent classrooms.

[TwilightGardener]

11. Every other large suburban district around us, when I was in high school, had a pool.

Our swim team competed with their swim teams. And most other large suburban districts where I now live have pools--because my sons' high school does have a swim team which competes with these other schools, but our school has to hold practices and meets at a university some distance away. I don't see public or school pools as some sort of "luxury", I guess, I thought it was normal to have access to a pool--maybe it's a northeastern thing? Either way, I don't feel bad for voting for the bond issue. My kids get less from their school than I did at their age, and that's sad.

[joeglow3]

15. My high school had/has no pool

We have no soccer field either. And yet, we finished top 10 nationally in both swimming and soccer.

Our local school district just mailed out ballots for a $150 million bond issue I will be voting against. Why, because they want to spend millions of artificial turf for two PRACTICE football fields and millions more on security that will do nothing (it is reactive to a shooting last year).

Sorry, but schools need to spend their money more wisely.

[Juneboarder]

12. Pools??

I moved every year growing up, so pretty much a new school every year. Only one school in my whole attendance had a pool and it was very much a private school where parents paid top dollar for the education.

I don't know if taxpayers should pay for a "public" pool that is available to high schoolers for use and not the general public; however I do feel taxpayers should fund new classrooms, as that is directly related to education and you can never go wrong when investing in education.

[TwilightGardener]

13. Yeah, pools. Cement ponds. Where I learned to swim. And this pool WAS

supposed to be open to the public, it was supposed to be a community pool, because we don't have one here. If you want your kids to learn to swim out here, you drive them 15 miles into the city.

[Juneboarder]

14. 15 miles isn't too bad!

I drive 10 miles to work every day.

[katsy]

5. Similar vote happened on the local level where I live last year.

Casual conversations with neighbors and friends suggested that rather than ideological motivation for rejecting taxation to fully fund schools... People were just tapped out. Lost jobs, fewer hours, higher cost of living has taken its toll in my area.

That is why income disparity will kill democracy. And that starts at the local level by gutting education, libraries, health and social safety nets.

[Bandit]

16. Sounds like people that live there don't need no stinkin' education...

They be pretty fart smellers...those that live there...