It was a tax bill bound to make a splash, even though it was all but doomed from the start not to pass into law.

It was a Republican proposal meant to tweak the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, or TABOR, a constitutional amendment that caps taxing and spending in the state and sacrosanct public policy among Republicans.

House Bill 1187, sponsored by Rep. Dan Thurlow, from Grand Junction, and Sen. Larry Crowder, from Alamosa, passed in the Democratic-controlled House and was voted down Monday by Republicans in the Senate State Affairs committee.

The bill aimed to allow the state to collect and spend more revenue by basing the TABOR tax rate on personal income levels tabulated over the last five years. The sponsors think their formula is a better way to arrive at the tax rate than the current formula, which adjusts the limit each year based on inflation and population changes. Any boost in tax money collected as a result of the new formula would have been set aside to pay for education, health care and transportation projects. The bill would have submitted a ballot question outlining the plan to voters to approve or reject.

The State Affairs Republicans opposed the bill because they viewed it as a tax increase and an unwelcome, even unconstitutional, attack on TABOR.

“I’m a believer in TABOR,” Crowder told the Colorado Statesman, arguing that his bill followed the spirit and letter of the amendment. He reiterated that the bill proposed to put the change in the tax law to the voters to decide. The heart of TABOR is that any tax hike must be submitted to voters for approval.

“I looked at this bill. I checked out the constitutionality,” Crowder said. “I take my oath to uphold the (state) Constitution very seriously. I’m offended by those who say I’m going against the Constitution.”

Crowder has long been sounding alarms about the worsening state of health care in his rural district and in rural Colorado more generally. Funneling more money into rural health care was his main motivation in running the bill.

“The governor has proposed pulling $195 million out of rural health to balance the budget this year,” he said. “Rural Colorado will take the brunt. Hospitals are looking at shutting down. So, what are we going to do?

“You’ve got a 0.22 cent gas tax in the state. It’s been flat since 1992. Well, we were trying to get back some of that, to shore it up,” he said.

Crowder expected the bill to be halted in State Affairs, the Senate “kill” committee, but he was optimistic about the future of the proposal initiated by Thurlow this year and that he happily signed onto.

“We’ll bring it back,” he said. “It was a new idea, and a lot of people didn’t buy into it, but the tax refund TABOR will deliver to my constituents is $25 to $45. In rural Colorado, they’d rather have a hospital to bring their kids to than $45. Our needs have changed since TABOR passed 25 years ago. Medicaid has expanded. We need to cover mental health.

“TABOR was meant to control government, not to stifle it,” he said.

– john@coloradostatesman.com