The Cato Institute, advocates for a small government, issued its Fiscal Policy Report Card on America’s Governor’s today. Eight out of 50 governments scored an F. One of them was Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick, who scored lower than 47 other governors (California’s Jerry Brown had the lowest score of all).
The report suffers a little because the scores are a little out of context. Andrew Cuomo of New York gets a B for cutting some taxes but there is no mention of the fact that New York started out as the highest tax state in the U.S. (as a percentage of residents’ income; see the Tax Foundation).
This was basically just a ranking of a state’s (and particularly its governor’s) “redness” (as in Red States/Blue States). 9 out of the top 10 governors were Republican and all of the bottom 10 are Democrats. It is no secret that Democrats are the party that generally favors more government spending (and more taxes since most states have to run more or less balanced budgets), while Republicans (especially at the state level where defense spending is not a consideration) tend to favor less.
Jackie: Even if that were true it would still be interesting because in the U.S. oftentimes party affiliation is not predictive of a politician’s positions. And if you look in the middle of the report you’ll see a lot of Democrats getting much higher grades than Republicans, e.g., the Democrat who runs Rhode Island gets a B while the Republicans who run Nevada, Utah, and some other fairly conservative states get Cs or Ds. Again, as noted in the original posting, I’m not sure that it is fair to hammer New Hampshire’s governor for having to raise taxes above one of the lowest levels in the U.S. while giving credit to governors in the highest tax states for slightly reducing taxes.
This is only a report on ‘fiscal policy’ if you consider ‘reducing spending and reducing taxes’ fiscal policy, regardless of the outcomes. The fact that Kansas just had their bond rating downgraded by S&P due to ‘structural imbalances’ caused by Brownback’s fiscal policy seems to indicate maybe this isn’t the best metric to use. Cutting revenue so much without matching spending cuts seems like pretty unwise fiscal policy, yet he gets an ‘A’ and the number two spot on this list.
Caede: Excellent point, covered to some extent in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast
>in the U.S. oftentimes party affiliation is not predictive of a politician’s positions.
I would say it is highly predictive based on Cato’s metrics.
In the Cato chart, of the A, B, or C rated governors, I count 23 Republicans and all of 4 Democrats. In the D or F rated category, 16 Democrats (including all of the F rated) and 5 Republicans (either 2 states are missing or I counted wrong).
If I told you a governor had a Cato score of 50 or higher and you guessed that he was a Republican, you’d have a 85% chance of being right and if I told you another fellow was below 50 and you guessed Democrat, you’d be right 76% of the time. Most researchers can only dream of metrics that have such powerful predictive value.
I would agree with others that this is form the “let them eat cake” institute. The #1 accomplishment of the highest ranked governor is to abolish progressive tax system in favor of flat tax:
“■ Pat McCrory of North Carolina signed into law a major tax reform package in 2013, which replaced three individual income tax rates (6.0, 7.0, and 7.75 percent) with a single rate of 5.8 percent, falling to 5.75 percent in 2015.”
PA governor drops a grade for increase of cigarette tax to fund schools.
Wisconsin governor gets a B for lowering taxes while increasing spending. That sounds like a real visionary. I am not even going to go about his refusal to take federal money or the petty vindictiveness of his staff.