Forty-five years ago this week: “Voting against tax relief is politically sensitive,” wrote Gov. Dick Lamm in a column in The Colorado Statesman. “But my conscience and my responsibility for Colorado’s fiscal health required a veto.”

Lamm decided to personally author the opinion editorial as a way to explain to Coloradans why he felt the need to veto the General Assembly’s 1981 tax relief package, which would have returned surplus revenues to taxpayers.

“The concept of returning surplus revenues to the taxpayers is unquestionably a proper one,” Lamm wrote.

But, Lamm argued, Colorado had already anticipated and responded to the national cry for tax relief. Individuals and businesses had received over one billion dollars in direct tax relief since 1987 and another half billion dollars in property tax relief through the School Finance Act. When adjusted for inflation, Lamm wrote, state general fund taxes paid by the average Coloradan had declined by about 20%. 

“My objection to this bill is one of cost,” Lamm wrote. “The price tag is more than Colorado can afford at this critical time. It is an example of trying to live beyond our means.”

Lamm wrote that it was likely that the legislature would override his veto, but he couldn’t ignore the absolute necessity of Colorado’s financial independence.

“The tax package had three principle faults,” Lamm wrote. “It was fiscally irresponsible for Colorado’s future; its enactment was premature; and there is a better manner in which to provide tax relief.”

Lamm argued that the tax package would bring Colorado precariously close to violating its own reserve law — requiring at least 4% of general fund revenues — so that the state did not operate in a deficit. To determine the amount of tax relief Colorado could afford, it was best to consider the findings of a blue-ribbon panel that had just completed two years of work on the question.

“The Blue Ribbon Panel identified operating pressures and capital needs totaling over $12 billion against an estimated general fund surplus of $6 billion over a 20-year time span,” Lamm wrote. 

The demands needed by the state that the Blue Ribbon Panel had identified ranged from highway construction and maintenance, money to cover potential federal shortfall in Colorado water projects and a revamping of the School Finance Act. The panel recommended that $500 million needed to be set aside over the next five years, with an initial $70 million in 1981. 

“These figures are conservative and farsighted,” Lamm wrote. “These investment needs are inescapable. We will not avoid them by ignoring them. We face a choice of paying now or paying more later.”

Twenty-five years ago: The Rocky Mountain Gun Owners sent out an email message to their members urging their supporters to abandon Republican Gov. Bill Owens and U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo in their bids for reelection. 

The Rocky Mountain Gun Owners had campaigned vociferously against the SAFE Amendment 22, which would have closed the so-called “gun show loophole.” 

“While some of these gun-grabbers might be reelected, they shouldn’t be doing it with the money of gun rights advocates,” said RMGO executive director Dudley Brown in an email to members. “In some cases, they are slightly more pro-gun than their prospective opponents in the Democratic Party. However, we believe the most important battle right now is within the Republican Party, where gun rights advocates hold a large majority and where we’ve been successful in electing our people.”

Brown argued that if Owens, “widely known as the Republican who stabbed gun owners in the back,” could ignore gun owners’ demands and still get their support, it sent the message that other “marginal GOP politicians” could do the same.

Rachael Wright is the author of several novels, including The Twins of Strathnaver, with degrees in political science and history from Colorado Mesa University, and is a contributing columnist to Colorado Politics, the Colorado Springs Gazette, and the Denver Gazette.