Governor Ritter unveiled a new report called The Dividend Degree that calls for across the board higher taxes to make up for budget shortfalls: income taxes, sales taxes (including services), property taxes, etc.  The $1.5 billion dollars raised through these taxes would be dedicated to higher education to replace the $113 million in stimulus funds that will not be repeated next year.  Report

John Straayer, a CSU political science professor, said this is not an extreme measure and would essentially roll the state back to where it was a decade ago.  The report says we have enough wealth in the State of Coloado to bear this extra tax burden.  It fails to acknowledge that we are in a recession.  It also ignores the fact that support of higher education continued to increase by 10% each year for the last several years, including last year.  No cuts, no layoffs, no reality checks.

For a measure like this to win the hearts of voters, Straayer said, the legislature will have to erase party lines, team up with the business and higher education sectors and start selling the measure now.

So what we have is an academic who has not felt any impact of the recession because of federal stimulus telling small businesses that they should sacrifice for his benefit.