Ritter Avoids Responsibility for Tax Hike Policy, Hides Behind the "Children" Again

From Mike Saccone's Political Notebook in Grand Junction:

Republican state lawmakers plan to have a counter-proposal to Gov. Bill Ritter’s mill levy freeze ready and introduced in the Legislature by the end of the month.

Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Yuma, said he and Sen. Mike Kopp, R-Littleton, plan to introduce their referred measure “soon” to reverse the governor’s property tax, education-funding measure.

(The referred measure should also, even if only for a day, return voters’ attention to one of the more igneous policies of the 2007 legislative session. Republican Greeley Sen. Scott Renfroe’s Senate Bill 137 did the same thing earlier this month.)

“We’re going to be entering the school finance act debate soon,” Gardner said, “and they are going to try and spent $118 million that may not belong to the state of Colorado.”

Gardner said he would love to wait until Mesa County’s lawsuit against the state gets resolved, but the voters cannot “afford that.”

“If we could do a special election on this, we’d do it in a heartbeat,” Gardner said.

Evan Dreyer, spokesman for the governor, said the Legislature already addressed the mill levy freeze last year.

“Gov. Ritter is governing. The Legislature is legislating,” Dreyer said. “We are acting in the best interest of Colorado’s school children.” [Emphasis added]

Hardly a surprise, when the governor doesn't even want to entertain the possibility that he might have been wrong in raising property taxes without a vote. Instead of taking mature, responsible ownership of a constitutionally questionable (at best) policy, he hides behind the false moral superiority of "acting in the best interest of Colorado’s school children."

Admitting mistakes doesn't seem to be in the Ritter playbook.