Tax revenues in the American states, the tax revolt, and Colorado’s TABOR amendment. Paper presented at the Ludwig Von Mises Institute

A shouting mob of more than 1,000 anti-tax protesters stormed the Capitol Thursday, pounding on office doors and breaking windows, with one broken by a rock hurled into Gov. Don Sundquist’s office. Chanting “no new tax! ” the protestors banged on the locked doors of the Senate chamber where Tennessee lawmakers were debating the creation of a state income tax. ~Atlanta Journal and Constitution, July 13, 2001 The people and the economy can only wax fat and prosperous when their government is starved and puny. ~Murray N. Rothbard, 1992 Almost a decade before the citizens of Tennessee were smashing windows at the statehouse in protest against the income tax, the citizens of Colorado, in a similarly anti-tax state of mind, were voting for a constitutional amendment that would significantly decrease the power of the state government (and local governments as well) to raise taxes, create new taxes, or even to collect additional tax revenue. And, as with the Tennessee voters of a decade later a great gulf was perceived between those who pay the taxes and those who spend them. The Colorad