One of two pending Republican proposals that would do much to rein in the tax burden on Colorado's employers--freeing them up to create more jobs--won approval in the full Senate today. Senate Bill 37, introduced by Sen. Mike Kopp, a Littleton Republican, aims to curb an obsolete tax that would have ended years ago had it not been for lawmakers who kept raiding the proceeds for other programs.

"It's a way to get us to make it right with the businesss community in Colorado," Kopp told colleagues shortly before they OK'd the bill.

At issue is a tax assessed on the insurance premiums that employers pay to cover injured workers; it stokes two state funds that were set up decades ago to help defer the high costs associated with catastrophic on-the-job injuries. The two funds should have been topped off long ago, when both accounts were closed to new beneficiaries and were supposed to have become self-sufficient to pay all remaining claims.

However, lawmakers tapped deeply into those and other "cash funds" to shore up the state budget after the last recession several years ago, and the governor and General Assembly again have raided the funds this year to help bridge the state's current funding shortfall. Without Kopp's bill--which is sponsored by Rep. Frank McNulty, R-Highlands Ranch, in the House--businesses will be assessed yet again to restore the funds.