In the News Colorado Analyst Urges Nebraskans to Reject Spending Lid Associated Press. September 29, 2006 LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) -- A fiscal analyst who saw firsthand the effects of a government spending cap in Colorado was in Nebraska on Thursday urging voters here to reject a similar measure. "This is a machete where you need a scalpel," said Carol Hedges, an expert on Colorado's so-called Taxpayer Bill of Rights, often called TABOR. Hedges, an analyst with the Colorado Fiscal Policy Institute, was in town to speak to a gathering the Nebraska League of Municipalities, which is part of a coalition called Nebraskans for the Good Life that opposes the lid. She said the Colorado measure, passed in 1992, had disastrous effects on the state. "It was bad for Colorado," she told The Associated Press. "It was a proven failure." Colorado voters last November suspended TABOR -- the strictest government spending limit in the nation -- and agreed to relinquish more than $3.7 billion in tax refunds over five years to take advantage of the rebounding economy and restore programs that were cut during the downturn of the past few years. "We squeezed so tight during the boom years of the 90s that by the time we got to the recession we didn't have any room," Hedges said. "We had already cut to the muscle." TABOR limits government tax and spending increases by linking them to inflation and population. After a recession hit in 2001, Colorado lawmakers carved $1.1 billion from the budget over three years, much of it from higher education and health care. Before last year's vote, Gov. Bill Owens threatened the closure of 11 state parks, $12 million in cuts for health care for low-income and uninsured residents, a $7.7 million slash in financial aid of students and the elimination more than 600 government jobs. The Nebraska measure, working under the name Stop Over Spending Nebraska, seeks a constitutional amendment that would tie state spending to cost of living and population changes. Sponsors of the petition drive are Mike Groene of North Platte and Americans for Limited Government of Glenview, Ill. Groene has said the cap is needed because state spending will go up 7.8 percent and 7 percent, respectively, the next two years. Groene said the state budget will have increased 282 percent from 1984 through 2007, when the cost of living during that period increased only 83 percent. But Hedges said that analysis is incomplete. "To talk about ... spending only without talking about services that result from that spending -- you're only looking at half of the picture," she said. "What is the state budget providing that the people don't want provided?" Hedges used gasoline prices as an example. "You say `OK, I'm going to spend $100 a month on gasoline,' " she said. "Well, the price of gas goes from $2 to $3 a gallon. You are spending the same amount on gasoline, but you're getting a lot less gas." Factor in a 3 percent rise in the cost of living and "that would allow you to spend $103 on gasoline," she said. "You are still getting less gas." Said Groene: "She's right. That's what we want. We want more efficiency. "We want fewer state vehicles running up and down the highway," he said. "We've got a technology boom -- why aren't we using the Internet and teleconferencing? Why are we burning so much $3 gas? That's the point we are trying to make."