Andy Kessler wrote a column in the Wall Street Journalon Monday in which he remarked on how bad ideas seem to have a lamentable habit of being resurrected even when thought left for dead on the ash heap of history. He could have very well been writing about Colorado’s proposed Amendment 73.

Amendment 73 is being touted by its proponents as a way to pay for public education in the state through a $1.6 billion-per-year tax increase generated by raising… well, just about every tax they can think of. It effectively raises residential property taxes by freezing the assessment rates at 7 percent, nearly a full percentage point higher than they are scheduled to drop to in 2019; it imposes a 30 percent increase in the corporate tax; and, probably worst of all, scraps the most sound and fair economic policy ever implemented in the state – the flat income tax – by re-imposing a progressive tax structure with a 78 percent increase to the top bracket.

This is objectionable on both philosophic and economic grounds. As a philosophic matter it is offensive to the principle, reified in the 14thAmendment, of equal treatment under the law. Taxing A at a higher rate because she works 20 hours a week more than B at the same job is incompatible with that principle, which traces back to English common law and is upheld by Colorado’s flat tax policy. Economically, punishing success by taxing the marginal dollar makes about as much fiscal sense as taxing your own exports, or relying on the lottery for long-term retirement planning.

One of the pre-eminent economists of the 20thcentury, F.A. Hayek, described in his great book “The Constitution of Liberty,” the redistributive nature of the progressive income tax as “the chief source of irresponsibility of democratic action and the crucial issue on which the whole character of future society will depend.” J.R. McCulloch wrote that “the moment you abandon the cardinal principle of exacting from all individuals the same proportion of their income or of their property, you are at sea without rudder or compass, and there is no amount of injustice and folly you may not commit.” Few policy weapons demonstrate the ability to depress economic vitality as adroitly as the progressive tax structure.

And yet it is the star feature of Amendment 73, precisely because of its obfuscatory nature. Re-establishing tax brackets, starting at $150,000, allows the tax’s proponents to sell it as a tax on “other people.” Tax increase measures in the state commonly fail because people generally do not want – or can’t afford – to give up any more of their income. Ah, but someone else’s income, that’s another thing.

But is it? Well, certainly not if your combined household income happens to reach that magical $150,000 threshold. And since the rate is not indexed to inflation, within about 10 or 15 years most of the middle class will likely fall into that range and see their tax rates go up.

Then there is the corporate tax hike. One presumes that the proponents intend for this to be messaged to and received by voters as a tax imposed on the Coca-Cola’s and Chase Bank’s of the world, and therefore of no concern to them. This ignores the fact most small businesses in the state are registered as corporations and will be targeted by it. More immediately, it is generally well-established that corporations do not pay tax; they pass it along to consumers in the form of higher prices. This, incidentally, includes all of those nascent marijuana businesses that everyone seems so excited about, which, like any other segment of the economy, will now be faced with increasing their prices or going under. (Though unlike most sectors, I suppose the marijuana industry retains the option of going back underground.) Price inflation is, of course, the most regressive tax there is, and the one tax increase imposed by Amendment 73 which its proponents care not to advertise.

After all of the empirical economic arguments delineating the fiscal enormities of the proposal, there remains an examination of the ostensible intent. Supporters shout from the hilltops that confiscatory tax increases are required to ensure the future of education, and this assertion goes largely unchallenged.

Yes, education funding is crucial; but if simply expending tax dollars was the silver bullet required for the improvement of education, ours would rank among the most scholarly societies on the planet. In Colorado, total education funding is nearly $10 billion per year; but an ever-increasing percentage of that goes not to feeding young minds, but to feeding the bureaucracy. Public education is broken, in part because it struggles under its own weight.

Systemic reforms are required in the way we provide education. Adequate funding is, yes, part of that equation, but is a part subject to the maintenance of overall productive economic conditions. If the design is to improve school funding, then cementing in the state constitution tax policies which depress productivity, erect barriers to individual economic advancement, and inflate prices cannot be the answer. Amendment 73, therefore, ought to be returned by the voters to the ash heap, wherein it will reside until the next time someone decides to resurrect a bad idea.