Business Rejects TABOR

A new Kiplinger article sees an interesting trend in the battles being fought over the tax-and-spending limits known as TABOR in state houses nationwide: business interests are opposing these limits in state after state. Here's the Kiplinger forecast for this fall:

Expect businesses to mount pitched battles to defeat such initiatives in Maine, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada and Oregon. Companies fear that a lack of state spending on services and infrastructure will make it impossible for them to attract talented employees, especially for high-tech jobs.

Observers of big tax battles in Virginia and Alabama in recent years (and of Colorado voter's partial rejection of their existing TABOR rules in last fall's election) know that when a state's Chamber of Commerce comes down on the side of fiscal sanity, good things can happen. Kudos to business interests in these states for recognizing that the fiscal policy coin has two sides, and that unaffordable tax cuts will directly result in spending cuts that make a state a less attractive place to do business.