Please don’t be misled by TABOR, the so-called Taxpayer Bill of Rights. Listen instead to Steve Johnson, the Assistant Minority Leader of the Colorado Legislature and a Republican who has recently told Mainers, “If you think this is a bad dream, it’s a nightmare. You have no idea how bad this will be for your state.”

Colorado is the only other state to have tried TABOR, and the voters have put a moratorium on it because it wreaked such havoc there. TABOR is a national agenda being pushed on Maine and other states by the same kind of extremists who decidedly lost the dangerous Palesky tax initiative two years ago. Much like Palesky, TABOR seeks to impose on us a very rigid and flawed one-size-fits-all taxation formula that does not take into account population differences from one town to another nor the way certain costs such as energy and health care exceed inflation rates.

It also strangles local control by requiring an unfair two-thirds majority vote of local governing bodies plus costly local referendums when communities have to override the extreme TABOR restrictions in order to fund their essential services.

As in Colorado, TABOR would cause severe cuts in essential services such as schools, fire and police protection, road repair and health care and create huge service-fee increases that would more than offset any so-called tax savings. Homestead Exemption, Circuit Breaker, LD 1 caps and other such measures are better ways to address Maine’s tax issues. On Nov. 7 please vote NO on Question 1.

Ron Bilancia

Brewer