By Matt Soper
Fiscal conservatives and small business leaders across Colorado are supporting Amendment B, the ballot measure that repeals the Gallagher Amendment and freezes property tax rates for everyone.
Any serious supporter of the free enterprise system should support Amendment B. As the head of the National Federation of Business has said, without Amendment B, a real number of small businesses around Colorado will be pushed over the edge to insolvency.
First, Amendment B freezes property tax rates for everyone and requires a vote of the people before property tax rates can be increased. Second, B stops $300 million in automatic local property taxes that would otherwise take effect next year. If the Gallagher Amendment is kept on the books, next year local businesses, including farms and ranches, would pay property tax rates five times higher than everyone else. Third, B repeals Gallagher’s 40-year-old formulas that drain funding from firefighters, police, and vital local services.
B is supported by the Colorado Fire Chiefs Association, the Fraternal Order of Police, the Colorado Association of School Boards and the Rural Schools Coalition, because B stops irrational shifts in funding.
Colorado’s leading conservatives support Amendment B, including former GOP Senator Hank Brown, former GOP Attorney General John Suthers, former GOP Secretary of State Wayne Williams, the Farm Bureau, and chambers of commerce in Colorado’s most conservative communities, like Colorado Springs, Greeley, Loveland and Grand Junction.
Vote for small business and conservative reform of a broken property tax law. Vote Yes on Amendment B.
State Representative Matt Soper represents the 54th House District for Colorado.