Topeka ? Carol Hedges, a native Kansan and Kansas University law school graduate, returned home Thursday to warn Kansans about what the Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights has done to Colorado.

“It’s very popular to be anti-government and TABOR is at its essence anti-government,” Hedges, an analyst with the Colorado Fiscal Policy Center, said in a briefing to the Kansas Board of Regents.

TABOR is the acronym for the constitutional amendment adopted in Colorado in 1992.

TABOR restricts government spending to inflation plus population growth and requires voter approval of tax increases.

A proposal similar to TABOR is before the Kansas Legislature. It would require a two-thirds majority in the House and Senate before it could be placed on the ballot.

The Kansas chapter of Americans for Prosperity, which is pushing for approval of TABOR, issued a statement that said opponents of the amendment were making reckless and desperate comments.

Barry Poulson, an economics professor at the University of Colorado, who works on behalf of Americans for Prosperity, said the TABOR amendment in Colorado had improved the economy and provided taxpayers with $3 billion in rebates.

“To hear opponents describe it, you’d think TABOR causes everything from natural disasters to male pattern baldness,” Poulson said.

Hedges said TABOR had strangled the government’s ability to respond to new emergencies and increase funding for new mandated services.

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“It’s not a Democrat or Republican issue. It’s how much do you value public services,” such as roads, schools and health care, she said.

Since it was implemented, Hedges said, higher education and public schools have been the biggest loser in the Colorado budget.

Higher education funding gets reduced because “it isn’t a mandatory expense in the same way that Corrections and Medicaid are,” she said. Funding to public universities has dropped from 23 percent of general fund appropriations to 11 percent since TABOR has been on the books, she said.

Public school funding was falling so far behind that Colorado voters passed another amendment to offset TABOR and increase funding for public education, she said.

Higher education officials were sympathetic to Hedges’ message.

Kansas State University President Jon Wefald said he believed the proposal would die in Kansas because “good old-fashioned Kansas common sense will come to bear on this.”