Talk:Taxpayer Bill of Rights
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[edit] No mention of Amendment 23?
The effect of amendment 23 needs to be discussed. This article isn't neutral without discussing 23. Mre5765 02:24, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Off-year voting
I would like more clarification here. The article says -
"They also add that the process has not been as "democratic" as its advocates purport, citing the off-year voting and complex wording that may skew results."
Which implies that off-year voting might be required. But it also says "Referendums have generally been held in "off years" away from other elections" which I read to mean that it's not required, but it's just generally what has happened. So this should be made more clear in the article.
In my experience, the timing of when initiatives come before the voters is generally detirmined by the initiative's supporters. I don't know about the specifics in Colorado, but I know in most states, initiatives can be put before the voters by two methods - if a group collects petitions or if the state legislature puts it on the ballot themselves. And in both cases, the timing of the election is typically detirmined by the proposal's supporters.
[edit] Anti-democratic referendums?
Citied form the article:
They also add that the process has not been as "democratic" as its advocates purport, citing the off-year voting and complex wording that may skew results. Some supporters claim that complicated tax decisions are best decided by deliberation based on well-informed argument and informed consent, such as presumably occurs in legislatures, rather than the simplisitc and emotionally-charged appeals that tend to dominate referendums.
The first italicized phrase is an example of WEASEL WORDS. But that is not what bothers me; anti-democratic opponents, mainly aristocrats, have used the second italicized phrase to advocate against democracy, as if the common person was not smart enough to govern themselves. To have that phrase in a paragraph devoted to a supposed pro-democratic stance is laughable, if not insulting.
- I am marking this article as {{weasel}} until it has been neutralized. It looks like it needs a lot of work. For example, I am concerned with the sentence The most famous and prominent example is the state of Colorado because TABOR in Colorado can also be infamous depending on who you are, due to it being the strictest amendment ever. Regards, Tuxide 20:31, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
[edit] response
Yes, but isn't there already a touch of sarcasm in such as presumably occurs in legislatures? If not for the word presumably then I might agree with you, but with that word there it seems to me that the phrase might actually be making the very point that you want to make.
[edit] Article needs complete makeover
I just wanted to point out a few problems with this article (and offer no solutions while I'm at it.) First, this isn't the "Colorado TABOR Act" article. There should at most be a brief paragraph about that act, with a link to a primary article. As it stands this article is actually about the TABOR in Colorado, with a brief mention that TABOR is also a national movement, it should be the other way around. Second, the for and against sections have been obviously written specifically to argue with each other. An article, to be unbiased, should present both sides of an argument, but it should not itself be an argument. For example, right now one section of the article calls another section (on education spending) "misleading" and suggests they rely on "fallacious" comparisons. While the opponents certainly claim this, it is not an objective fact, and could be handled differently, for example, "Opponents of TABOR point to the fact that Colorado ranks 47th in the country in education spending. Supporters, however, believe that this is not a fair representation, as it measures spending as a percentage of total income. When measured on a per student basis, Colorado ranks somewhere between 23rd and 33rd, depending on the survey."
In the end, however, this shouldn't matter, since arguments for and against a specific implementation of TABOR do not belong in the generic article.
