School children aren’t pigs at the trough

I had the opportunity to visit Bangor recently to discuss the Taxpayer Bill of Rights initiative that will be on the ballot in Maine this November. Colorado, my home state, is currently the only state with TABOR. We have been living with it since 1992 so our experience can be helpful to citizens in states such as Maine where TABOR is being debated.

I decided to come to Maine to speak about TABOR because I felt it was the right thing to do; I was not paid to leave my four children, husband and office to travel across the country and discuss fiscal policy. I wanted to make sure Mainers knew about the problems TABOR caused in Colorado, so they could learn from and hopefully avoid our mistake.

With the help of AARP, I was able to tell my personal story of how TABOR impacted my family, my small business and my community in a very rural area of Colorado.

But in response to my comments on a radio show in Bangor, the sponsor of Maine’s TABOR initiative, Mary Adams, said that I was “squealing” along with the “pigs at the trough” such as AARP. This upset me greatly.

I am a mom. I represent my children. I am passionately against TABOR because of how it hurt the public schools in Colorado. School children in Colorado (and Maine) are not pigs.

Senior citizens in Colorado and in Maine are not pigs either. To my knowledge AARP does not receive state funding. They represent senior citizens who need prescription drugs, transportation, nurses and heat in their homes during the winter. Are senior citizens in Maine a bunch of pigs at a trough? Are they getting too many services?

Adams also implied that I had a partisan agenda. That is simply wrong. I happen to be a fiscally conservative Republican but I have, and will, work with elected officials from any political party to oppose TABOR.

This past November we had a referendum in Colorado to suspend TABOR for five years because it had caused too much damage and just wasn’t working. The coalition that successfully fought for this referendum was bipartisan and broad; it included every chamber of commerce, economic development corporations, labor unions, nonprofit organizations, faith-based groups, Republicans, Democrats, higher education leaders, health care providers and many more.

I was proud to be part of the TABOR suspension victory in Colorado and I am proud to speak out against TABOR in states like Maine, where it is being falsely advertised.

TABOR creates problems instead of solving them. TABOR hurts priorities instead of furthering them. TABOR makes our elected officials less accountable, not more. TABOR is bad policy and I hope the people of Maine are not fooled the way we were in Colorado.

Kristi Hargrove is a small business owner and PTA leader who lives in Crested Butte, Colo.