By David Grant Long

At first he didn’t succeed, so anti-tax crusader Jeff Wright tried and tried again, ultimately reaching his goal on the 181st attempt only because of a bureaucratic foul-up.

"The state is trying to destroy the initiative process," Wright said recently about his protracted battle to get the ballot title of his proposed constitutional amendment approved.

"It had been rejected 180 times and we finally got it through because of a mistake," he added, explaining the Colorado Secretary of State’s office had missed the seven-day deadline to protest the wording of the measure, as it had done during myriad previous title-setting hearings.

And since Wright’s initiative, known as Tax Cut 2000, has now cleared this initial hurdle, he is confident it will attract enough signatures to go to the voters next November.

"We’re not going to have any trouble making the ballot," he said during a brief visit to Cortez to recruit petition circulators. "Once people hear about it and understand it, they really respond.

"This is a very simple proposition," he added. "It cuts taxes in four specific areas."

The proposed amendment would gradually reduce state and local taxes on income, property, vehicles and utilities by $25 each a year, Wright explained. Still, the measure wouldn’t cause any reduction in government services, he maintained, because average people’s tax bills increase by more than that annually "based on pay raises, property assessments and car prices."

For example, Wright said, the average wage in Colorado is going up by approximately $1,000 annual, which works out to about $50 in additional income tax. So this typical worker would still be paying $25 more even with the deduction, he added, and the rate of tax-revenue growth would be slowed by only 1 percent.

"If you look at the tax system in Colorado, it’s very regressive — it affects middle- and low-income people the most," he said, explaining that the taxes targeted by the amendment are "paid at the same rate by the poor at they are by the rich.

"A family of four, whether they make $10,000 a year or $100,000 a year, pretty much buys the same amount of food." he said, "but as a percentage of income, the tax paid on the articles they buy is proportionally much higher for the low-income family.

"The same is true for the utility tax and the vehicle tax," he added. "It amount to a penalty on the poor and what we’re trying to do with this proposal is simplify that structure and remove the regressivity."

The state legislative council calculated the overall impact of the amendment would amount to a $663 million tax break over three years, he said, a period when state tax revenues are projected to increase by $3 billion. And any decrease in local revenues, such as property taxes, would have to be made up for by the state.

"All the money and power in the state is beginning to centralize almost exclusively in Denver," he said, pointing out that there has been a seven-fold increase in the amount of state taxes collected over the past two decades.

The tax cuts would benefit the Montezuma County economy because some of that money would be spent locally instead of being given to a state legislature whose priorities are dictated almost exclusively by Front Range interests, Wright maintained.

"Meanwhile, the money I would have paid the local taxing districts is replaced by the state from the extra millions in revenue they’ve been receiving, so there’s no loss to the local taxing districts," he explained. "This forces (the state) not only to become more efficient, but to recognize that they’re getting more money now than they ever have been." Wright vehemently denied that his proposal is a only an oversimplified gimmick that doesn’t belong in the state’s governing document.

"(The constitution) has tons of things in there that deal with figures and rates and the establishment of boards, things of a similar nature," he said. "There are many sections that deal with specific rates and functions just as this does."

Wright said the initiative will need approximately 62,500 signatures of registered voters to gain a spot on the ballot, but that he wants to collect 90,000 to allow for any disqualifications. He said he hopes to accomplish this by mid-February and turn in the petitions well before the March deadline.