A panel of Republican and Democratic lawmakers talked about the problems of taxing, spending and TABOR Wednesday morning for the South Metro Denver Chamber of Commerce.

House Assistant Minority Leader Cole Wist laid out the plan GOP members are likely to run on next year: moving spending decisions away from a six-member Joint Budget Committee to a more hands-on legislative process. He and House Republican leader Patrick Neville, R-Castle Rock, initiated the idea that’s getting lots of consideration.

Democrats on the chamber panel, Rep. Leslie Herod, D-Denver, and Sen. Cheri Jahn, D-Wheat Ridge, said they would like to hear more. (So far and over several months, none of the legislative Democrats asked by Colorado Politics have expressed strong or any opposition to the idea. Stay tuned.)

They were joined by Sen. Jack Tate, R-Centennial, and Rep. Bob Rankin, R-Carbondale. Rankin was elected by his caucus to serve on the JBC. The other members were appointed by their caucus leadership.

The JBC delivers a budget to the legislature in April. This year it was about $28.5 billion. By that point, it’s usually a done deal, except for a few cursory amendments and other budget requests from the floor that only amount to partisan wishes.

Wist said there are 210 state department and agencies who want a slice of the budget pie, and it’s up to individual legislators to set the priorities and help hold the line of over-spending.

“I think you can put state departments and agencies in the category of weeds in your garden,” Wist said. “If you don’t tend to weeds they’re going to overtake the garden.”

He said Texas uses a two-year budget, and other states give all legislators a larger role in writing it than Colorado does.

Littleton City Councilman Phil Cernanec, who serves on the Denver Regional Council of Governments board, asked why transportation, a priority of the chamber, can’t get more state funding.

“It seems like if the state doesn’t come up with a solution, it seems the folks in the state will go to regional solutions, which will leave some areas of the state without enough,” he said.

Cernanec added, “That will leave the state overall wanting.”

Rankin fielded the question.

“My personal feeling is there is slack in the budget,” he said.

Rankin said the state treats roads a lot like it treats schools, sharing the cost with the federal government. Local communities chip in with local taxes.

“We really have to consider local versus state funding on both those issues,” Rankin said.

Legislators each talked about how the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights affects government and services. Colorado voters passed the constitutional amendment in 1992 to use a formula of population growth and inflation to set a state spending cap. New taxes have to go to a vote of the people.

Republicans contend it holds government accountable and limits over-expansion without taxpayer say-so. Democrats say the state falls behind in planning because it can’t count on long-term investments or the ability to sock away money during economic good times. Once the state reaches the cap, it triggers a tax refund to balance the ledger.

Herod was asked by an audience member what the taxpayers get for a $28.5 billion budget.

“In my opinion they’re getting a broken education system,” she replied. “They’re getting a crumbling transportation infrastructure. They’re getting human services that are not really workin for many people, and all those issues are a big problem – our higher education system, my God, we could talk all day about how underfunded higher education is.”

She said the state will continue to have problems with what it can and can’t fund.

Herod liked Wist’s proposal of having more hands-on budgeting for lawmakers, and she commended the Joint Budget Committee for looking at evidence-based results to determine what should no longer be funded.

“But we’ve got a lot more to do,” she said.

South Metro Denver Chamber chairwoman Michele McKinney, who is the assistant vice president for external relations and advocacy for the University of Colorado system, asked why the state’s growth, under TABOR, doesn’t allow for investments to keep up with that growth.

Rankin said the spending cap does allow for growth.

“TABOR is not an issue for the foreseeable future,” he said.

Tate said maybe the solution is “creating more taxpayers to collect more taxes.”

He said government, on the other had, “never cuts itself.”

Tate said that by restraining taxes, it benefits spending and the economy, which creates more jobs and with more businesses paying in.

“We should not discount the possibility that we’re as vibrant a state and economy as we are because of TABOR,” he said.

Jahn said there are portions of TABOR that everyone supports. She said that when the recession ended and the economy started growing again, taxpayers got a refund. She cited about $14 for the year.

“That’s money that could have been used for transportation,” she said. “In Colorado, we don’t have a bucket – a designated pot – for transportation funding. That is the problem.”

She said it sounds great that voters decide, but Republicans in the legislature last session killed a bill that would have put a sales tax on the ballot to pay for transportation.