The Taxpayer Bill of Rights did not work in Colorado. It will be more destructive in Maine. In Colorado, where the population grew and economy flourished, it took more than a decade to strangle the services that citizens expect from government.

Increases to budgets under TABOR depend on increases in population. Maine has a stagnant population. State, county and local governments will lose capacity to deliver needed services to Maine’s people under a TABOR formula that grows in response to the population.

Communities and the state will still have to heat the buildings and drive the police cars. Fuel prices have increased faster than the rate of inflation.

To keep buildings heated and police cars and firetrucks on the road, the governments will reduce the most important asset – those who care for our children, our elderly, as well as those who serve and protect.

We will have heated buildings without competent classroom teachers. We will have police cars without sufficient manpower to staff them.

Rob Walker, Auburn