Repeal Arveschoug-Bird? 'Hurray,' Bird says

Rep. Don Marostica, R-Loveland, may take comfort in knowing he's not the only Republican to come out against the Arveschoug-Bird limit, which restricts how much the state can spend each year on operating costs.

Former state Sen. Mike Bird, R-Colorado Springs, had already told The Denver Post that the 6 percent limit on general fund growth was too rigid. But Bird, 69, now a retiree in Arizona, called a Post reporter back the other day to criticize the spending limit even further.

Marostica recently got in trouble with his own party over his co-sponsorship of a bill to remove the 6 percent limit. Supporters of the bill have been bolstered by a recent legal opinion that says the growth restriction can be changed by a bill, rather than only by a constitutional amendment approved by voters as had long been believed.

In a follow-up call to the Post, Bird said that when lawmakers passed the 6 percent limit in 1991, they explicitly avoided submitting it as a constitutional amendment to be approved by voters. Coloradans the next year, however, approved the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, or TABOR, that contained a provision preventing any existing spending limits from being removed without a vote of the people.

Bird said TABOR botched the original intent of Arveschoug-Bird. (Rep. Steve Arveschoug, R-Pueblo, was the other author of the bill. He now lives in Montana and still supports the 6 percent limit.)

"When we introduced the whole spending limitation bill, we very, very intentionally did it as a statutory change and not as a constitutional change for the exact reason that we didn't want get something rigid in the constitution that would be difficult to adjust as time and conditions went by," Bird said.

The retired economist said it was unfortunate that the 6 percent limit has "ratcheted down" general fund spending by more than $1 billion over the last decade. Under the restriction, when revenues fall, the limit is re-established on the new, lower general fund total.  

And if a court says that lawmakers could simply change the 6 percent limit with a bill rather than go to voters with a constitutional amendment?

"I would say, 'Hurray! Hurray!' Bird said. "It should have never been in the constitution in the first place."

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