Maryville Daily Times

A Taxpayer Bill of Rights would keep state spending under control, Melton said.

"That provides for controlling spending and controlling increases in taxes ... (after) two years of surpluses, the surplus would be refunded to the taxpayers. Right now it's spent, which increases spending for the next cycle. We need to get some kind of controls on spending. Taxes are not the issue. Spending is the issue."

I used to think this was an idea worth at least discussing.

But then I recalled the words of conservative idiot Grover Norquist, who said "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."

Here's the truth about the Taxpayer Bill of Rights from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:

TABOR shrinks the scope of what government can accomplish and creates conditions that each year pit programs and services against each other for survival. And once such limits are embedded in a state constitution, they usually cannot be removed or modified. They undermine existing services for children, youth, and families and make any new initiatives virtually impossible to undertake.

In Colorado- the only state with a TABOR, voters decided in November 2005 to suspend their TABOR amendment for five years so that the state could begin restoring cuts in public services and avoid making even more drastic cuts.

That's what this is really all about. We're not satisfied being near last in education, health care, etc. We're clawing our way to the bottom, and these "no tax" conservatives pander to low-information voters who haven't figured that out yet.