Colorado Senator Jerry Sonnemberg:

The politicians hope that you don’t remember that when Referendum C passed in 2005, it was to go to education and highways. Funny how, now, Proposition CC is to go for basically the same things.

So where did that money go? Who knows. As the non-partisan state staff will tell you, it is impossible to know how the money was spent. What we do know is that education and highway funding did not increase by the amount of increased revenue to the state. Why? Because politicians can change the rules by just passing a bill – and they do every budget cycle.

Do you remember the games at sporting events where they hide a ball under one of three caps and you have to try and figure out where the ball is? That was the legislative budget process with Referendum C dollars – a shell game that replaced existing spending with supposedly new dollars.

The legislature did such a poor job managing those promises for highways and bridges that in 2009 they passed another bill called FASTER that created new fees and raised current fees in the name of transportation. Where did that go and why are we running another ballot question for more funding?