As fall takes hold in Colorado, and the day when ballots arrive in our mailboxes inches closer, the truth is taking bigger hits than the Broncos defense. 

Take the cynically crafted, fundamentally dishonest Proposition HH, on the ballot this year, which claims to offer significant, sustained local property tax reductions while safeguarding tax revenue streams for local entities such as public schools. 

The problem, of course, is HH is about anything but giving taxpayers a break and is in fact all about breaking the back of Colorado’s Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) – by raiding your wallet.

Now, after conservative groups, including Advance Colorado, put a klieg light on the details and showed how HH is a flat-out bait and switch – providing you with local tax relief by using your money that you have already paid to the state – the liberals are getting out on the road to make their case.   

Will voters catch on to the real game here?  

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The propaganda pieces legislative Democrats are using to evangelize for Proposition HH focus on two key points: advocates’ overblown assertions about property tax reduction and how the measure “backfills” local revenue for public schools and other needs with “a small portion of TABOR surplus.”  

But the slide deck can be best summarized by a simple term:  lies of omission, defined in the Urban Dictionary as “when you purposely don’t tell someone something because you know they won’t like it.” 

The deck implies local revenue is imperiled unless you agree to backfill the revenue your local tax cut consumed with your money from your TABOR refund. 

But what you won’t hear is local governments and school districts are going to receive an influx of revenue, with some estimates reaching $4 billion or more, thanks to assessment hikes that in some areas are crossing the 50% mark. That is just one year. So the chances of school officials, or mayors or the local library director needing to get out the cardboard signs and stand up at intersections to beg for cash if HH fails is zero.  

In fact, by changing the TABOR formula, HH will give the state an additional $10 billion in tax revenue during the next decade, according to Advance Colorado. 

If you want the real impact on you and your family, the Common Sense Institute created a handy calculator on its website that lets you pump in your home address and out pops the numbers. Talk about a no-spin zone. 

The Democrats’ propaganda tour also doesn’t mention the legislature could have provided all the property tax relief it wants to do all by itself, without asking the voters. But to siphon off your tax refunds and throw javelins at the heart of TABOR, they do need your consent.

Why not just tell the truth candidly? 

They know if they said, “We would like you to vote to end TABOR refunds so we can throw sacks of cash at our buddies in the teacher unions, no strings attached,” it would lose. In fact, they tried a version of that in Referendum CC a few years back and it lost. 

This is precisely why legislative Democrats cynically seized on Coloradans’ deep concern over the impending explosion of local tax bills to mask their plan to gut TABOR and are exploiting it in their autumn attack on the truth. 

Coloradans across the ideological spectrum should remember Democrats’ concern for your tax bills is precisely zero. In fact, for the three decades TABOR has been in place, they have bemoaned the fact it prevents them from having unfettered access to your bank accounts, both through unlimited spending and unlimited tax hikes. HH presents their best hope in years for finally neutering taxpayer rights, but only if they can disguise its true effects. 

Democrats also know Coloradans, despite allowing Democrats to run the table in recent elections, are still fiscally moderate, which is why conservative-backed tax cuts have won in recent cycles while conservative candidates have not. 

It is important, however, to be fair about the left’s HH advocacy campaign.

The slide presentation includes just one thoroughly honest slide. It titles a section: “Proposition HH for Dummies.” 

Exactly. 

The entire HH Ponzi scheme is predicated on the fact liberals think Colorado voters are the dummies, too dull to do anything but accept, uncritically, their lies of omission and saucer-deep sloganeering. 

Don’t reward this cynical attempt to make your taxes go up by telling you they are going down. 

Sean Duffy, a former deputy chief of staff to Gov. Bill Owens, is a communications and media relations strategist and ghostwriter based in the Denver area.