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Fiscal Discipline Colorado Style
by Chip Rogers

State Representative for District 15.

public wanted to spend some of the surplus on public Education and that is exactly what they did.

So fiscal discipline in Colorado allowed every citizen a rebate of the money they had earned. Meanwhile in Georgia, we not only spent it all but went billions in the hole for new bonds. Even more sobering, if we had just limited our spending exactly the way Colorado had done, we could have saved the taxpayers of this state close to $10 billion during the 10-year span. I don't know about you but $10 billion seems like a lot. Today we are faced with dropping revenues and a rainy day fund that is almost completely depleted.

The moral of this story may seem like it's just money, but it really isn't. It goes further. Colorado understands that freedom is the answer. It's the freedom to pursue the American dream with little government intervention. The philosophy of low taxation and controlled government spending creates a large neon "Open for Business" sign to entrepreneurs and businesses alike. The U.S. Tax Foundation ranks Colorado fourth best in the nation for small business. Georgia is 25th on the list and follows every state in the south except South Carolina who is 26th. The Fraser Institute annually reports the Freedom Index, which measures state restrictions on economic freedom. In 2000, Colorado was second in the nation for economic freedom. And finally, Colorado is one of only 10 states in America with no debt.

Georgia meanwhile has now led the nation in job loss each of the last two years. Some of it has been out of our control. Any economy heavily dependent on tourism, air travel, telecommunications and dot coms was going to be severely impacted by the events of 9/11. Unfortunately, there are some who believe that growing the size of government can somehow get us out of this mess. For example, just last year the Secretary of State more than doubled the cost of owning a corporation in Georgia. This is not the signal you send to those who might want to do business here. There were also numerous calls in last year's Legislative Session for increasing the taxes on certain businesses. It almost seems like we want to punish people who succeed.

Georgia is the home to two of America's top 20 public universities, Georgia Tech and the University of Georgia. We have the climate, infrastructure and agricultural base to support almost any industry. Everything seems to be in place to create a booming economy. Now all we need is a State Government that budgets their money like most Georgia families. Perhaps we in the General Assembly need to spend more Sunday nights like many Georgia families, sitting around the kitchen table cutting newspaper coupons.

Chip Rogers is the State representative for District 15. You can call him at (770) 516-0543 or fax him at (770) 936-1967. You can also e-mail Chip at ChipRogers2@comcast.net.

The only time I've spent in Colorado has been limited to wandering through the Denver International Airport. Which is to say for all intents and purposes I've never been to Colorado. Yet without an intimate knowledge of the Rocky Mountain state, I can tell you in some ways I want Georgia to be more like Colorado.

Georgia and Colorado are very similar in many aspects. We each have one major city that drives the state's economy, Atlanta and Denver. We're each growing rapidly. During 2002, Georgia was the fifth fastest growing state followed by Colorado at number six. Finally, we both seem to have a lot of traffic. Georgia is ranked seventh in what is known as "Average Daily Traffic per Lane" while Colorado is eleventh.

So you are probably wondering, what's the difference, besides some mountains and some snow? It's a philosophy of how you budget money and what it means for jobs. I know many of you might not want an in-depth look at state budgeting and believe me I don't wish to offer one. This is more like the story of the ant and the grasshopper. If memory serves me correctly, the ant saved his food and lived well all winter while the grasshopper wasted his and paid the ultimate price.

In 1992, Georgia state government entered into a spending spree like we've never seen before. At the same time Colorado passed, what I believe is the model for how governments should operate, the Taxpayer Bill of Rights, otherwise known as TABOR.

Let's look at the 10-year period from 1992 to 2001. We see that Georgia spending more than doubled. Yes, we had many new residents and there was some small inflation, but when you combine those factors, it should have only resulted in an increase of 50% in spending not over 100%. Every new program one could think of was enacted. The tax money was flowing into state coffers and the General Assembly found a use for every dollar and then some. By the time the party had come to an end, we had spent ourselves into a hole.

Now we look at Colorado. Their Taxpayer Bill of Rights says you can't spend yourself out of control like Georgia. In fact, the state budget growth is limited by the state constitution to the rate of inflation plus the increase in population. And better yet, if a budget surplus results, the money must be given back to the taxpayers in the form of a rebate check unless they, the taxpayers, vote to spend it on some urgent need. In just a five-year period between 1997 and 2002, Colorado issued rebate checks of $3.2 Billion. In 2001, the