When Government Goes Dark, Taxpayers Lose Control

By Buddy Jericho

Across Colorado, I hear from people who did what they were told responsible citizens should do. They worked, saved, bought a home and, in some cases, paid it off. Yet they still worry they may not be able to afford to stay because the tax bill keeps climbing.

That anxiety is not imaginary. According to Colorado’s Division of Property Taxation, certified property-tax revenue rose 21.1 percent from tax year 2022 to 2023, reaching nearly $15.45 billion.

That money does not flow directly to state government. It funds school districts, counties, municipalities and special districts, and lawmakers have since adopted measures intended to limit future increases. Those distinctions matter. But so does the experience of the taxpayer: A paid-off home can still feel as if it is never fully yours when the cost of keeping it rises faster than your income.

Coloradans deserve more than a bill. They deserve a clear explanation of why it increased, where the money went and what measurable result they received in return.

The same principle should apply to fees. Colorado still refunds revenue under the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights; the state calculated approximately $1.66 billion in TABOR refunds for fiscal year 2023-24. But government also collects substantial revenue through fees and enterprises, much of which operates outside TABOR’s revenue limit. Although voters have imposed approval requirements on certain large new enterprises, those protections do not cover every fee or enterprise.

Consider Senate Bill 21-260, the transportation package that created four state enterprises, modified another and imposed or adjusted charges involving fuel, retail deliveries, rideshares, vehicle rentals and electric-vehicle registrations. Its final fiscal analysis projected $200.4 million in new annual cash-fund revenue by fiscal year 2023-24, with about $95.2 million exempt from TABOR.

Some of those projects may be worthwhile. That is not the point. If a charge is mandatory in practice, citizens should be able to see who authorized it, how much it collects, where the money goes and whether it accomplished what they were promised.

The Floyd Hill project on Interstate 70 illustrates why that standard matters. Its estimated cost rose from $700 million in 2020 to $905 million in 2025, while anticipated completion moved from 2028 to 2029. CDOT attributes the changes to more detailed design work and pressures on construction and material costs.

That increase does not automatically prove waste or misconduct. It proves the public needs a clearer line of sight. Every major government project should have one accessible record showing its original budget, current cost, schedule, funding sources, responsible officials, contract changes and measurable results.

Right now, that information is often scattered across agency websites, fiscal notes, audits, meeting packets and reports that ordinary citizens do not have time to assemble. Disclosure is not the same as transparency. Data can be technically public and still be practically unusable.

This matters beyond budgets. When people work harder but feel less secure, and when government demands more without clearly accounting for the results, faith in the existing system erodes. Promises of greater government provision naturally become more attractive to people who believe the economy and public institutions no longer work for them. That helps create fertile ground for socialism - not necessarily because people reject freedom, but because freedom without affordability, opportunity or trust can begin to feel theoretical.

Yet the more government is expected to provide, the more authority citizens surrender over the terms of that provision. Assistance can be necessary and humane. Dependency as a governing model is something else. A society in which people cannot afford housing, health care or a stable future—and must then rely on the same opaque institutions that helped make life unaffordable—is not delivering genuine security. It is reducing agency.

The answer is not blind trust in a different party or another administration. It is to make blind trust unnecessary.

Unlike a corporation, government must serve every citizen equally. But taxpayers should still be treated like shareholders: entitled to understandable accounts, meaningful oversight and evidence that resources are producing results.

No administration - Republican or Democratic - should ask Coloradans for more money or authority without clearly showing what it has done with the money and authority it already possesses.

Open the books. Connect spending to results. Give citizens a meaningful voice before costs climb and promises change. Accountability is not merely a campaign theme. It is how we restore trust, protect individual agency and make self-government work again.