Many are analyzing the surprisingly close Virginia gubernatorial race results, but I’m struck by a citizen vote in liberal Colorado that CRUSHED an increase in that state’s income tax.
Well over $10 million (the equivalent of spending about $75 million on a CA proposition) was spent by the unions and wealthy liberals to pass Amendment 66. That campaign spending included a million dollars EACH by Bloomberg, Bill Gates and the NEA. The governor and the establishment press fervently supported the tax. After all, it was “for the children” — the tax was supposedly for education.
A pathetic $30 THOUSAND was spent by the opposition. Yet the measure failed in this rather liberal state by a 66.2% NO! vote (vs. 33.8% yes) — essentially a two-to-one rejection of the tax.
http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Colorado_Tax_Increase_for_Education,_Amendment_66_(2013)
FROM THE TAX FOUNDATION:
“The tax increase would have changed what is currently a flat 4.63 percent tax on all income to a 5 percent tax on the first $75,000 (an 8 percent increase) and a 5.9 percent tax on income above that (a 27 percent increase). It would have hit 95 percent of Colorado businesses.”