TABOR IS HURTING OUR COMMUNITIES

Colorado’s Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights (TABOR) was adopted in 1992 as an amendment to the state constitution without community input. Under TABOR, even when Colorado grows, even when our families’ needs grow, the state budget isn’t allowed to grow with us. TABOR imposes strict limits, what policymakers call caps, on what Colorado can invest in healthcare, housing, education, and the basic services our communities rely on.

OmniSalud, our state’s health coverage program for immigrants, is one of the clearest examples of how these restrictions harm our communities. The program is underfunded, not because people don’t support immigrant healthcare or because the program fails, but because TABOR is broken. In 2024, a state audit found a minor technical error in how the state tracked the cost of OmniSalud, revealing revenue that could have been allocated to public services. With any other tax system, this could be corrected and budgets adjusted. But because TABOR is so rigid, the revenue was automatically sent out as individual refunds, even while programs are underfunded, community need is rising, and the public overwhelmingly supports access to basic services like healthcare.

TABOR causes real and ongoing harm to Brown and Black communities. And when state leaders, including Governor Polis, continue to propose tying Medicaid spending to TABOR caps, the message is painfully clear: If healthcare costs rise, the state responds by cutting care. That setup guarantees fewer services, longer wait times, less access to providers, and worse health outcomes for the very communities that already face the highest barriers to care. We’ve already seen the damage through OmniSalud, where rigid revenue caps and automatic refund triggers have stripped resources from an essential health program our immigrant communities depend on. TABOR doesn’t reflect our values, our needs, or the reality of our growing state, and none of this aligns with what our Latine community believes in. Our communities deserve better. 

Stay connected as we address Colorado’s restrictive revenue system, and our communities finally have an opportunity to demand the resources we need to stay healthy, safe, and self-determined.