Ballot issue details remain cloudy

Thursday [Sept. 26], in a debate about the proposal, the politician who chairs the committee which is pushing the proposal at first claimed he had not estimated how much the tax would cost! Later, he claimed that his estimate was “around $210 million to $220 million.” Then he brushed off the observation that, since 20 years times $10.9 million is $218 million, his estimate must be assuming no inflation, population growth or real economic growth for the next 20 years.The actual figure is easy to estimate. A few minutes with a computer spreadsheet yields the following:Annual retail
sales growthTotal cost
6 percent$400 million
7 percent$446 million
8 percent $499 million
9 percent$558 millionAnnual sales growth in Larimer County over the last 15 years has averaged 7.1 percent. The current population of Larimer County is around 220,000. It will probably increase by about 13 percent by the midpoint of the 20 years, so the average additional tax burden will be about $1,794 per person, or $7,176 for a typical family of four.
Every used-car salesman has to supply his or her customer with a statement of the total cost (including financing) of a $10,000 automobile purchase. Perhaps if the Legislature and the County Commission were run by used-car salesmen, we would get honest answers to basic questions about their half-billion-dollar fantasies. Then we wouldn’t have to figure them out ourselves.Alan Wendt
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