(The Center Square) – Colorado’s state government has grown beyond the restraints placed on it by the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, a recent report says.
TABOR, the constitutional amendment approved by voters in 1992, requires voter approval for tax increases and limits government spending increases to inflation plus the rate of population growth.
The report, called “Leviathan by Loophole: the Growth of Colorado’s State Government After TABOR” by the Independence Institute, a free-market think tank, looked into several metrics that show government growth.
“Although TABOR may constrain state government growth to some extent, it has not done so in the way widely believed, as it is systematically and deliberately circumvented,” the report said.
The report adjusts the state’s budget growth, one of the key metrics of government growth, for inflation and population change. It found Colorado’s general fund, which is subject to TABOR, grew 44% from fiscal year 1993-94 to 2024-25. The cash funds, which are generally not subject to TABOR and raised through fees, grew 588% during that period.
“TABOR has been consistently circumvented, as evidenced by significant increases in per capita cash fund revenue and a declining share of total funds subject to TABOR,” the think tank said in its report. “This is not an inherent distortion of TABOR but rather a deliberate legislative effort to circumvent the state’s constitutional restraints.”
Colorado Democrats have frequently used the term “fees” as a work around to avoid having to ask voters for tax increases as required by TABOR, as The Center Square previously reported.
Colorado’s gross domestic product growth has also been outpaced by state government spending. Since 1997, GDP has grown an average of 5% each year, totaling a 146% increase, while state spending has averaged 6% growth each year, totaling a 163% increase, the report found.
Another metric detailed in the report was the growth in public employment, which increased 6% annually between 1993 and 2024. Meanwhile, private employment grew at 2% annually over that time.
Independence Institute policy analyst Nash Herman, who authored the report, said it’s tough to “rein in” lawmakers at the legislative level since “the last thing legislators want is to restrict their own power.”
“That is exactly why TABOR is so important — it is the citizens’ direct check on government power, because politicians are unlikely to do it themselves,” Herman told The Center Square, answering questions by email.
“To fix the problem from getting worse, it would take an extraordinary amount of humility on the part of legislators. No matter how smart the General Assembly may be, they do not know everything,” he added. “Coloradans know how to spend their own money better than any legislator or bureaucrat ever could. That’s the humility the legislature currently lacks. That is the mindset shift that needs to happen.”
“In terms of actual policy, the obvious answer in Colorado is to reduce regulations,” Herman said.
The Independence Institute report also included metrics of lobbyist income, which increased 374% since fiscal year 1995-1996; Medicaid enrollment, which has increased from 500,000 people enrolled in 2009 to 1.2 million in 2025; and the state effective tax rates, which have gone up nearly 14% since 2001.
