Maine’s retirees living on fixed incomes must weigh the appeal of the Taxpayer Bill of Rights constraints on spending and taxes against diminished services. Fortunately, we can study the failed “laboratory experiment” provided by Colorado.

In 2005, its economy in tatters, Colorado voted to suspend TABOR. Since 2001, Colorado had made $1 billion in spending cuts. Thousands of seniors lost help paying property taxes when the Homestead Act was repealed. Medicaid budgets for long-term and in-home services for seniors are lower than in 44 states.

Colorado dropped to 39th among state and local funding for health and hospitals; to 28th place in access to prenatal care and 50th in “on-time” immunizations. Colorado children without health care increased from 15 percent to 27 percent. K-12 education saw the fourth-largest drop in funding among 50 states. Teachers are 50th in pay. Graduation rates declined to 70 percent from 76 percent. Colorado plummeted to 44th in highway funding; $1.6 billion now needed to repair bridges and roads that decayed under TABOR.

TABOR’s indexing of state and local budgets based on changes in population, inflation, or assessed value (whichever is smaller) is fatally flawed. It doesn’t consider emergency circumstances (ice storm) or federal mandates (No Child Left Behind). It doesn’t recognize that subgroups of the population (with unique needs) grow more rapidly than the general population. Maine’s population is expected to grow 10.7 percent by 2030, but its senior population will grow by 104 percent.

Peter Gartner, Bryant Pond