Colorado

Colorado Votes for More Spending and Higher Taxes

Voters passed Proposition NN and Amendment 87, raising the state spending cap and getting rid of its flat income tax, respectively.

Joe Lancaster | 11.6.2026 11:25 AM

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Midterm results are still pending in some states, but it's quite clear that voters across the country overwhelmingly elected Democrats, in a repudiation of the current crop of Republican lawmakers.

But for those of us who support lower taxes and spending, there is bad news in at least one state's results.

In 1987, Colorado was the first state to adopt a flat income tax rate for both individuals and businesses. "A decade later, its per capita income was about 5 percent higher than comparable states that kept graduated rates," Adam N. Michel, director of tax policy studies at the Cato Institute, wrote in September.

Today, Colorado's tax rate is 4.4 percent, lower than most of its neighbors.

Then in 1992, voters passed a ballot initiative adopting the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights (TABOR) into the state constitution. According to the measure, TABOR would "require voter approval for certain state and local government tax revenue increases and debt" and "limit the rate of increase in state and local government spending," among other things.

"Its preferred interpretation shall reasonably restrain most the growth of government," read the text as enshrined in the Colorado Constitution. To that end, it capped spending increases by state and local governments at the rate of inflation plus the percent of population growth. If spending in either case exceeded those limits, "the excess shall be refunded in the next fiscal........

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