We’ll say it again: The Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights — better known as TABOR — is the only safeguard the public has left against a legislature that spends like drunken sailors on leave. 

Wisely embedded into Colorado’s constitution by the state’s voters in 1992, the landmark restraint on government growth requires tax hikes to be put to a vote of the people, and it caps year-to-year increases in tax revenue collected. Excess revenue is refunded to taxpayers.

Of course, politicians addicted to taxing and spending have resented TABOR all along — especially its wildly popular “TABOR refunds.”

Scarcely a legislative session goes by without one or more devious attempts to undermine TABOR — and the 2026 session is no exception. 

In fact, one of the most egregious assaults on the policy was passed this week by ruling Democrats at the legislature and now will go to this fall’s statewide ballot.

Employing verbal sleight of hand, the deceptive provisions of Senate Bill 26-135 will ask voters in November to engorge the state budget by at least $2 billion over the next decade to better fund that ever-unassailable spending priority, public schools. The pitch to voters asks:

“Shall state investment in K-12 public education increase two percent each year for the next ten years … without raising taxes but instead funded by raising the annual limit on state fiscal year spending …” 

No one could be against “investment” in our schools, right?

The catch is that “raising taxes” and “raising the annual limit on fiscal year spending” amount to one and the same. The latter is simply tax money that was collected — and is supposed to be returned. And this measure would erase TABOR refunds for the foreseeable future.

It’s a tax hike by another name.

It gets even more devious. If voters agree to this deceptive pitch to keep excess revenue, it also would permanently lift the limit on government growth — even after the 10-year toll for schools is over. That amounts to an added, annual infusion of play money for lawmakers, for good. It would gut TABOR’s most important feature in reining in runaway government growth.

More to the point, most of the money would not — not — go to public education. As The Gazette’s news affiliate Colorado Politics reported not long ago, a nonpartisan analysis found three-quarters of the money won’t go to schools but to the general fund — for lawmakers to spend as they see fit.

The cost to the public? According to the independent legislative analysis, every taxpayer would have to give up $7,381 in TABOR refunds between the 2026-27 and 2036-37 fiscal years. Again, most of that wouldn’t be for schools but for whatever programs lawmakers hatch next.

It’s the handiwork of the same legislature that included a blatant ripoff in the 2026-27 state budget, just signed by Gov. Jared Polis. At the direction of Polis, lawmakers are illegally keeping another $306 million in surplus state tax revenue that TABOR says they’re supposed to refund to taxpayers.

That’s over and above the attempted money grab slated for the fall ballot.

The citizens advocacy group Advance Colorado, a stalwart critic of the legislative majority’s reckless fiscal policies, issued a statement of dismay Monday after the approval of SB 135.

“Last time legislators attempted a measure like this, they lost by 19%,” said Advance Colorado President Michael Fields. “People love their TABOR tax refunds — and legislators will be reminded of that again in November.”

That’s assuming, of course, enough of the public is aware of the proposal’s duplicity. Consider this a heads-up.