Folks, here we go again with the Colorado left's favorite fever dream: a graduated income tax that's nothing short of a targeted shakedown on success, dressed up as "fairness" while the Bell Policy Center's radicals plot to drag the Centennial State deeper into the progressive pit. This Ballot No. 181 circus—up for a Title Board rubber-stamp today—wants to shred our hard-won flat 4.4% rate (you know, the one TABOR guardians fought tooth and nail for) and slap on a dozen brackets that let low earners pocket a token $200-300 "cut" while hammering job creators over $500K with the full force of envy economics. We're talking six-figure gut punches for anyone pulling $10M or more—entrepreneurs, innovators, the very engines of our booming tech, energy, and tourism sectors— all to feed a $2.3 billion slush fund for teacher raises, Medicaid bandaids, and feel-good childcare handouts that never fix the root rot of bloated bureaucracy.

Bell's crew spins this as a middle-class lifeline, but let's call the bluff: It's a sequel to California's tax terror, where the top brackets chase wealth out faster than a grizzly from a beehive, leaving behind a shrinking tax base and skyrocketing deficits. Remember the October smackdowns? The board wisely axed two prior versions for gutting TABOR's single-subject sanctity and that ironclad "uniform rate" clause—no surcharges, no games, just equal footing for all Coloradans since '92. Now they've "tweaked" the language to keep the facade while unleashing the beast, complete with a phony audit to greenwash the revenue grab. Proponents like these policy wonks ignore the exodus already underway—affluent families bolting for Wyoming's zero-income-tax freedom—because their utopia runs on other people's money, not real-world math.

This isn't progress; it's predation, reigniting the war on TABOR that Jared Polis and his Denver Dems have salivated over since day one. It punishes aspiration, rewards dependency, and turns Colorado's red-meat economy into just another blue-state carcass. Republicans, rise up: We've got to torch this at the ballot box in '26, defend TABOR like the liberty firewall it is, and push real reforms—cut spending, unleash school choice, and let free markets lift all boats without the government's boot on the throttle. Who's with me in saying hell no to this graduated grift and keeping Colorado the land of opportunity, not oppression?