A Race to the Bottom –
Can You and Your Community Afford the Costs of the TABOR Amendment?

1. History Demonstrates a Race to the Bottom.
Ask the citizens of Colorado what price they are paying for the TABOR Amendment in their community. In Colorado, a TABOR Amendment was passed in 1993. Since then, that state has seen a significant decline in the basic services in their state. Colorado has plummeted to 48th worse in the country for prenatal care and 50th in child immunizations. They have sunk to 48th worse in elementary and high school education spending. They now rank 47th worse in higher education spending. They rank 48th worse in high school drop outs. And they rank 46th in roadway repairs. TABOR has caused many of these rankings to fall nearly 20 state rankings since it was enacted. TABOR has caused disinvestments in nearly every single program in the state. This race to the bottom is where Ohio could be heading if a TABOR Amendment is passed.

2. “Run Away From It”.
Those are words from a Republican legislator in Colorado regarding TABOR. In fact, a Republican legislator that originally supported the TABOR Amendment in Colorado said “I wouldn’t vote for it again. It ties the hands of the representatives. It’s like trying to change the spark plugs on a car that’s moving down the road at 90 miles an hour.” Citizens of Colorado are so frustrated with the downward spiral of their state that for the first time in over 40 years, Colorado voters elected a majority of Democrats to the House and Senate. Clearly the backlash against TABOR has begun.

3. Radicalizes State Government.
According to a study by the Ohio House of Representatives Budget Office, we could be facing massive cuts in some of our most basic programs. What is on the chopping block? According to the study, all of our parks could be closed. Libraries would be on the chopping block. Education, nursing homes, senior care programs, roads and bridges, emergency services, all would be slashed. Clearly, TABOR would be a disaster, as it would dismantle our basic community services. The cuts we would be facing, approximately $18.7 billion over the past decade, could run the state government for an entire year. According to the study, Ohio would have $3.5 billion less to spend in this current fiscal year. The study notes that the decreases that would be necessary to make up that kind of shortfall would affect every citizen in the state of Ohio. Among possible scenarios for cutting $3.5 billion a year could be to:
- Reduce education spending by $2.5 billion. Per-pupil aid would fall from $5,169 to $3,550, ranking Ohio with Alabama and Mississippi among the nation's lowest.
- Eliminate half of state spending for local governments, saving $352 million.
- Cut 80 percent of funding for local libraries, saving $380 million.
- Eliminate all state spending for Passport, the $103 million program of in-home care for the elderly.
- Close all state parks, saving $128 million.
- Other scenarios could include closing state prisons or state facilities for the mentally retarded, or wiping out all $2.48 billion spent on higher education.

4. Threatens Democracy and Good Government.
Good government is based on the principle of majority rule. Not only would TABOR be damaging to the basic service delivery to local communities, it would also deal a serious blow to our democratic process by allowing a few extremist s to monopolize Ohio’s agenda. TABOR would require a two-thirds vote in the legislature, allowing just a few fringe members to yield an enormous amount of power. An important funding issue could be denied because of a hand-full of legislators would refuse to support the proposal. In addition, a minority of voters will be making the decisions on your community’s funding. Because local proposals would have to be voted on, those showing up to vote will determine the proposal’s success or failure. In Colorado, they found that fewer than 20 percent of voters made decisions about fiscal policy in off-year elections. This is wrong to let a handful of citizens make these funding decisions, and it goes against our democratic process. Some politicians have proposed an alternative amendment that wouldn’t go quite as far as the proposed TABOR Amendment. COHHIO opposes this idea. TABOR is a bad idea, and a slightly less painful proposal is only slightly “less” bad as a result. Movement in this direction in no more palatable because it only partially interfers with our democratic process, or only cuts funding by 50 percent, instead of 90 or 100 percent. This effort needs to be stopped at all levels.

TABOR is a destructive proposal and will take our state in the wrong direction. Ohio is already suffering with a sluggish economy. Eliminating our basic community services, disinvesting in schools and our children’s education, disinvesting in our roads and bridges, disinvesting in our police and fire departments, will add jet fuel to our race to the bottom. TABOR is fiscally foolish and should be rejected on its face as bad public policy.