Hickenlooper begins new state tour to sell TABOR fix


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LEADVILLE, Colo. (AP) — Gov. John Hickenlooper is launching a statewide tour to push for a change in how the state spends money, asking Coloradans to help him overhaul the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, also known as TABOR.

Hickenlooper wants to exempt the hospital provider fee from state revenue collections under TABOR because it pushes Colorado over the constitutional revenue cap, prompting taxpayer refunds the following year even as the state struggles to adequately fund priority areas.

If the fee were removed from TABOR, Colorado's revenues would fall under the cap and the state would have $200 million more to spend on road projects and classrooms, the governor said.

"People love rebates. You're a hero when you send out tax refunds," he told a crowd of 50 in Leadville on Friday. Those refunds come from funding that could be used for things like education and transportation, he said.

The state expects to collect $670 million in fees from hospitals next year. The money is leveraged to get additional federal dollars to cover health care costs for Medicaid patients, the Denver Post reported (http://tinyurl.com/p7qn2pl ).

In the recent legislative session, Hickenlooper and fellow Democrats pushed a bill to change TABOR accounting, but the Republican-led Senate rebuffed the attempt, saying it was merely an effort to weaken the state's spending limits.

At a meeting in Frisco, crowds asked for various projects, including outdoor recreation.

Hickenlooper said the requests drive home his main point.

"Every time someone asks me a question, I feel like asking them, 'So what do you want me to cut?' Because there is absolutely no way we can do anything that we are not doing now without cutting from somewhere else," he said. "We don't have additional revenues that are going to start coming in."

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Information from: The Denver Post, http://www.denverpost.com

Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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