TABOR

The country’s anti-tax proponents argue government always wastes our hard-earned tax dollars and there are no money bargains or savings for citizens when taxes are used collectively to improve our quality of life or our education systems or our health care programs.

This deceptive and immoral propaganda campaign, aimed directly and relentlessly at the middle class, has been waged by modern-day conservatives since the Reagan era, and it continues today. Nationally, it is known as the Republican “starve the beast” strategy developed by right-winger Grover Norquist.

The success of the TABOR initiative petition drive in Oklahoma will rest entirely on creating this false mistrust in government spending. Its underlying ideology argues that paying taxes is always—not sometimes, not most of the time, but always—a losing proposition for taxpayers.

TABOR, which stands for the Taxpayer Bill of Rights movement, would limit state government spending to a formula tied to the inflation rate and population growth. Any leftover money would be refunded to taxpayers. Oklahoma Tabor supporters, mostly funded by outside political interests, are hoping to gather enough signatures to place the issue on the ballot next year even though Colorado voters recently rescinded TABOR there because it decimated the state’s educational systems.

But you need to look no further than Oklahoma City’s recent success with MAPS (Metropolitan Area Projects) to see the obvious deception in basic TABOR ideology.

In 1993, Oklahoma City voters approved a sales tax increase in order to give the city a much needed facelift. More than $309 was collected from 1993 to 1999, and the proceeds went to such items as construction of the Ford Center and the Bricktown Canal.

By virtually all measurements, MAPS is a great success. Bricktown is flourishing, we have a fantastic new downtown library, and the city recently become the home of the New Orleans Hornets basketball team after Hurricane Katrina forced the team to find a temporary home.

City officials are hoping the city can show the NBA that Oklahoma City is now a big league city ready for a permanent team here once the Hornets return to New Orleans. That would have never have happened except for increasing, not cutting, taxes.

The funded projects have obviously helped to increase business recruitment here. Beyond that, Bricktown—for all its faults—is truly a vital and thriving entertainment district that is an Oklahoma City jewel. It improves the quality of life for us all. It also deepens the city’s overall tax base, which helps us all financially.

But I bet you will not hear TABOR supporters talk about how tax dollars were spent to improve the city.
I am sure TABOR supporters would argue that nothing in their proposed constitutional amendment would prevent taxpayers from passing a new MAPS-like initiative here or elsewhere in the state.

But that is not the point. If government always wastes money and we always need to reduce taxes and government spending, then why should we ever increase taxes? There was as much as a potential for waste and corruption with MAPS and city government as there is in state government.

Under TABOR ideology, in fact, Oklahoma City should have cut taxes, not raised them. That would have made Oklahoma City a better place, according to TABOR ideology. That would have created jobs here and improved the city’s basic infrastructure, they would argue.

Relentless oversight of taxpayer’s money is always crucial, but it is disingenuous to argue the members of the MAPS oversight board were somehow more moral and scrupulous than those people who oversee state spending, such as the state auditor or the attorney general.

Ultimately, the state TABOR supporters want to starve state government of revenue, which will lead to much higher college tuition costs, higher fees, under funded educational programs, and reduced programs for the state’s vulnerable. Right now, Oklahoma leads the nation in the number of hungry people on a percentage basis, according to a recent study.

Set aside, for a moment, the intrinsic moral issue of cutting taxes that would mostly benefit the ultra-rich as the state cuts social programs, which is sure to happened if TABOR is enacted. Look at it pragmatically. Reducing funding for social programs costs us all in the long run through, among a variety of things, rising health care costs. When someone without health insurance—the country now has approximately 45 million uninsured people—shows up at a local hospital emergency room, we all pay more money for health care. Our co-pays go up and other medical costs for extensive cancer tests like mammograms skyrocket. It costs us directly and immediately.

The hidden and real reason for TABOR and all these current anti-tax movements, of course, is to decrease taxes for the country’s ultra-rich. The ultra-rich have the money to buy the publicity and the power to shape the news in ways that make many people wrongly believe government always wastes our money. Meanwhile, the rich play us against each other.

But MAPS proves them wrong as do such important federal insurance programs as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. When we pool our tax money with diligent oversight of government, we end up saving ourselves much-needed cash along with improving our quality of life. We are all in this together whether the rich elite like it or not.

Those of us in Oklahoma higher education need to start speaking out aggressively against TABOR, the so-called Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights, which will decimate the college and university system in this state if it is eventually enacted.

With strong support from the state’s biased, right-wing corporate media, TABOR supporters are now circulating an initiative petition to get a constitutional amendment issue on the ballot next November. The petition needs approximately 200,000 signatures.

If approved by voters, the TABOR amendment would limit the growth of the state government’s budget to a formula tied to the inflation rate and population growth. Anything collected over that amount would be refunded to taxpayers.

But some aspects of government, including higher education, often grow beyond this formula. For example, Oklahoma higher education has recently tried to meet the financial demand of growing enrollments. These growing enrollments are a good sign the state might soon begin increasing its low college graduation rate.

In addition, a relatively poor state like Oklahoma needs at least a little flexibility in improving its infrastructure in order to maintain a bare minimum of “quality of life” when compared to most other states and to attract outside business investment. Also, in most cases, when states use tax money collectively and wisely to improve quality of life, residents actually save more money than they would get from token tax refunds. That is because, among other things, they end up paying lower college tuition, have fewer car repairs, and enjoy better and less expensive health care.

So would you rather pay $2,000 more each year in college tuition for your child, or get a $50 refund check?

The right-wing may frame its tax-relief ideology in the language of populism, but it is based on the elitist, neocon concept of transferring wealth to the richest in our society as it eliminates educational opportunities for middle-class people.

Colorado government has operated under a TABOR amendment since the early 1990s, and it has been a disaster for the state, especially for higher education. It is so bad that voters are now asked by the state’s Republican Governor Bill Owens (yes, you read that right . . . REPUBLICAN) to rescind TABOR for five years so the state does not become like, well, like Oklahoma or Mississippi or Louisiana. Colorado voters go to the polls November 1 to decide this issue.

So this Colorado mess is what we want to bring to Oklahoma, which already struggles with low educational funding rates, infrastructure problems, and under funded social programs?

It is like limiting educational, social, and hunger-prevention programs in a Third World country because a handful of immoral, ultra-rich tyrants in that country want all the money for themselves.

Yet I suspect TABOR has a decent chance of passing here in the state.

The main reason is that TABOR’s local supporters are given carte blanche access to the press while those who oppose it have to work outside the corporate media to explain the truth about how TABOR will make this state even more mediocre in terms of its educational funding and progress. This is why it is crucial those of us employed in higher education speak out now.

As The Daily Oklahoman laments the state’s low college graduation rate, it runs biased, one-sided stories about those right-wingers pushing TABOR. Note how this story, for example, leads with TABOR supporters criticizing anyone who opposes them and gives the opposition view only in the last three paragraphs. This is immoral. The newspaper could at the very least run thorough and significant commentary from the opposition, which, in the past, has included some college presidents.

But right-wing fanatics obviously carry more weight in the newspaper’s pages than, say, University of Oklahoma President David Boren.

So, with that in mind, it is immoral as well for those of us in higher education to remain silent on such an important issue, which will ultimately impact thousands upon thousands of Oklahoma college students. If you care about students, about the mission of higher education, then you need to speak out.

Here are some facts about what TABOR has done to higher education in Colorado:

If current funding trends continue, there will be absolutely NO state funding for higher education in Colorado in ten years.

Overall, funding for higher education in Colorado has fallen from 19% to 11% of the total state budget.

The University of Colorado had its state funding cut in half since TABOR. (What do you think would happen to universities like the University of Oklahoma or the University of Central Oklahoma under a TABOR program? It would be exactly the same.)

College tuition in Colorado has skyrocketed, and thus those students from middle-class and lower-income families are hurt the most. The rate of college attendance has dropped in the state.

Here are some thoughts about TABOR from University of Colorado-Boulder Chancellor Philip DiStefano:

"In many ways, CU-Boulder is facing one of the most challenging periods in its history. ... In fact, our very existence as a state-supported university is called into question by the fact that only 6.5 percent of our budget is supported by state tax dollars – and that amount is all but certain to decline further if voters do not grant a reprieve to TABOR spending limits in the November election."

So what would it mean to Oklahomans if both the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University were private universities? It would mean that only wealthy people, for the most part, would have access to these institutions.

As we argue against TABOR, we must remind everyone that Oklahoma already has a constitutional amendment that severely limits the legislature’s ability to raise taxes. In addition, the state government’s budget growth has grown in line with the economy’s growth over the last decade or so. The state cut its tax rate last year and even refunded tax money.

TABOR would do much to hurt Oklahoma in many areas besides higher education. But the state’s academics have a special moral duty to speak out against it.

If we allow the right-wing to destroy the university system of free inquiry and research and enlightenment without a fight, we disgrace these very principles.