While TABOR (Taxpayer Bill of Rights) held the limelight briefly during the 2015 legislative session, it now sits in a House Committee, with the potential to re-emerge in 2016. What does TABOR have to do with our environment. Alexandra Forter Sirota, the Director of the NC Budget and Tax Center, explains in this guest post on Senate Bill 607.

SB607 Spells Disaster for North Carolina’s Environment & Natural Resources

As if the ongoing assault on the ability of the state to protect the environment, promote sustainable energy sources and build healthy places for future generations of North Carolinians isn’t enough, flawed policy ideas are being considered that would limit the state’s ability to set spending priorities and ensure revenue is available to do so.

In August, the Senate passed a dangerous piece of legislation that would put North Carolina’s most prized investments at risk. SB 607 would put on the ballot three constitutional amendments that would create a TABOR which puts in place a rigid and fundamentally flawed formula for state spending, limit investments in schools and other key services by capping the state income tax rate at a arbitrarily low rate, and require a supermajority vote of the legislature to use the state’s rainy day fund, even in times of true emergency.

TABOR IS WREAKING HAVOC IN COLORADO. Colorado enacted the nation’s only TABOR in 1992 but in 2005, voters temporarily suspended it because of the deep damage it caused in funding for K-12 schools, colleges and universities, and health programs.

It neither improved Colorado’s business climate nor its economy. Rather, it contributed to a credit rating downgrade and business leaders were part of a broad coalition that sought to temporarily suspend TABOR in the mid-2000s. As a result, other states are avoiding TABOR. It has been rejected in the nearly 30 other states where it’s been seriously considered, including at the ballot box in five states.

TABOR will cause deep cuts to services like education and infrastructure, despite our already low levels of investment. TABOR would make it impossible to invest enough in schools, health care, public safety, environmental protections and other building blocks of a strong economy. Had SB 607 been in effect since 1992, like Colorado’s TABOR, many of North Carolina’s biggest advancements over the past 20 years would not have been possible. Our treasured early education system, our protection of the seashore and expansion of our state park network, our critical water and sewer systems reaching rural communities, and valuable worker training provided through community colleges, would not exist as they do today.

In Colorado, TABOR has damaged the state’s reputation as a place to enjoy outdoor recreation and an active lifestyle, hurting its tourist industry, quality of life for residents and the long-term health of communities. The fees for state parks have increased even as maintenance of parks and recreation facilities has declined. The protection of farmland, support for testing soil and ensuring waste run-off doesn’t ruin crops was put at risk. Even programs like 4-H and Master Gardener run through extension programs were in jeopardy.

TABOR doesn’t work because it is based on a flawed formula that does not accurately measure the cost of providing basic public services. The formula is tied to inflation but inflation measures the cost of things consumers purchase, like housing and transportation, not the cost of providing certain services, like education and health care. Health care costs are growing nearly twice as fast as inflation. The formula also doesn’t account for our changing population and demographics. For example, our population is aging rapidly, with the senior population expected to grow 6.5 times faster than the general population by 2030, meaning the need for Medicaid and other vital services for seniors will grow disproportionately.

Tying our hands with artificial limits on how much we can invest is a road to ruin. It would hand over critical decisions about how to use taxpayer dollars to a formula. And because the formula is so fundamentally flawed, it would radically shrink the reach and effectiveness of critical services, regardless of what North Carolinians want. As a result, TABOR would put the budget on autopilot, make our recession-era level of investment seem like good times, and permanently undermine the very building blocks of our economy, especially education.

Alexandra Forter Sirota joined the NC Budget & Tax Center in 2010 and now serves as its Director. She can be reached at alexandra@ncjustice.org.