The state Legislature gutted taxpayer refunds this year, but that’s OK. Soon, we can apply for the new “Chicana/o special license plate,” as described in House Bill 1105, to benefit the small percentage of Latinos who self-identify as gender-specific “Chicana” or “Chicano.”

It’s just one of more than 100 bills chipping away at refunds owed to taxpayers under the state constitution’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights.

Sponsored by socialist state Rep. Tim Hernández, the bill establishes “a special license plate to support the Chicano Community, and, in connection therewith, making an appropriation.”

Another bill appropriates cash for criminals to seal their criminal records. Another pays the court fees for tenants facing eviction. One pays for criminals, including those convicted of a “violent felony,” to work in occupations regulated by the state — think medical workers, teachers and school counselors.

“Amid a period of state revenue growth in unprecedented excess of the Referendum C spending cap and a state budget larger than $40 billion for the first time in history, the state’s legislative majority has seen fit to circumvent the standard refund mechanisms through a long list of proposed tax rate reductions, tax credits and redistribution efforts,” states a new report by the nonpartisan Commonsense Institute.

The report details bills passed this year that will “slash the TABOR refund to a quarter of its projected size,” mostly to fund special interests.

“Through such measures, the state will diminish taxpayers’ agency to decide, whether by saving, investing, or donating to charity, how best to allocate money that they would normally be owed,” the report explains.

“The Legislature’s approach to these cuts broadly undermines TABOR’s intent by divorcing taxpayers’ contributions to state revenue from the values of refunds they receive and deciding for them how that money should be spent instead.”

The report documents bills reducing TABOR refunds by $523 million in FY24, $1.06 billion in FY25, and $1.25 billion in FY26.

Another bill chipping away at refunds owed under the state constitution’s Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights funds House Bill 1280, which budgets $375,000 on a “Welcome, Reception & Integration Grant Program” to “provide appropriate services for migrants who are within one year of arrival in the United States.”

That’s state government taking money owed to taxpayers and spending it on people who recently arrived, or might arrive in the future, who have done nothing to support state government and have few prospects of doing so. The list is full of legislation that takes money from law-abiding taxpayers and gives it to special interest groups — including criminals and immigrants here illegally.

When taxpayers lose hard-earned money to government, politicians should ensure the money serves them. The working consumers of Colorado should get better roads, more public safety, education scholarships and social services for people who live here.

Instead, the working, law-abiding, taxpaying and diverse people of Colorado will lose more than $2.8 billion over the next three years on agendas that won’t help most of them. Against their will, they will pay to ease the way for more immigrants here illegally, deadbeat tenants and criminals hoping to hide from their pasts.

The Colorado Constitution, despite the will of voters, cannot stop Colorado’s march toward a top-heavy, command-control economy that picks and chooses winners and losers, discourages production, rewards dysfunction and divides us into groups.

As Karl Marx best explained such a distribution scheme, “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” And, in Colorado, without regard for a law enacted by the governed.

The Gazette Editorial Board