Two very different perspectives on Tuesday’s gutting of the taxpayer bill of rights provision in the Colorado constitution:

• New York Times editorial, How Colorado Got Its Government Back:

In 1992, to the unmitigated glee of antitax types everywhere, Colorado voters amended the State Constitution to impose the nation’s strictest tax and spending limits. On Tuesday, they decided that government was worth paying for after all. By 52 percent to 48 percent, they voted to suspend the fiscal limits for the next five years and told the state to keep $3.7 billion that would have otherwise been refunded to taxpayers.

The vote clearly has to do with the pain of a permanently underfinanced government. Middle-class and low-income residents were getting burned by ever deepening spending cuts in education, health care and transportation.

• Wall Street Journal, Defanging the Tabor-Toothed Tiger, by John Andrews:

In Tuesday’s election, as far as taxpayer advocates are concerned, the Alamo fell. Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie are no more. Conservative defenders of the little guy fought valiantly, but the pro-tax forces overwhelmed them.

A mighty coalition of Colorado’s establishment spent the past year warning that the world would end unless voters agreed to $3.7 billion in higher taxes and $2.1 billion in deeper debt, and it largely worked. Referendum C, the tax hike, passed with 52% of the vote. Referendum D, the companion measure for bonding, fell just short with 49.6%. Interest was strong; over a million people voted.

The background and significance of Colorado’s ballot-box budget battle were explained in an editorial here on Monday (Rocky Mountain High Taxes). Briefly, the reason politicians have to get the people’s permission on taxes and borrowing is a 1992 constitutional amendment called the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, or Tabor for short. Tabor limited the tax revenue the state could spend to the previous year’s level, adjusted for inflation and population. Any surplus had to be rebated to taxpayers.

Tabor has been great for our economy, but it has always galled the spending lobby. With revenues slow to recover after the 2001 recession, the empire saw its chance to strike back. Referendum C not only grows government by canceling all refunds until 2011; it also purports (unconstitutionally, many think) to loosen the revenue limit forever. Tabor is now toothless. And since over 20 states have Tabor-style proposals on the table, the vote was nationally watched.