Posted on 09/30/2010 10:11:53 AM PDT by WebFocus
The fiscal conservative-libertarians at Cato Institute have issued a report card for current governors, and they aren’t exactly generous with the praise. If a C is the minimum passing grade, then just 27 out of 50 states manage to keep from failing the test. At the top of the list, the Wall Street Journal reports, are at least two presidential aspirants — Tim Pawlenty and Bobby Jindal, and a third that gets a B, Mitch Daniels:
The Cato report card gives the lowest grades to Governors who proposed or enacted the biggest tax and spending increases, while Governors who cut or held the line on taxes and reduced spending go to the head of the class. Raising income and business taxes are the most harmful to a state economy—Exhibits A and B would be New York and California—so Governors who raised those taxes were heavily penalized. The nearby table shows the list of the Governors who earned grades of A and F. …
The Governors who received the highest grades in the Cato report proved that budgets can be balanced without raising tax rates even in severe downturns. Several Governors—Indiana’s Mitch Daniels, South Carolina’s Mark Sanford, Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal, Texas’s Rick Perry, New Jersey’s Chris Christie and Virginia’s Bob McDonnell have reset their 2011 spending to 2007 or 2008 levels. Many Governors also responded to lower revenue collections by selling state assets that are better managed in private hands: casinos, toll-roads, state-owned liquor stores, even buildings and land.
Cato gave four As, the other two going to beleaguered executives in the East, Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Mark Sanford of South Carolina. Manchin has no problems with support as Governor, but he’s discovering that West Virginia voters would rather keep him in that position and send a Republican to the US Senate. Sanford, of course, is running out the clock after a disastrous personal scandal resulted in divorce and embarrassment, but he’s still working hard and pushing fiscally conservative policy in his state.
Of those with presidential aspirations on the list, Pawlenty is probably the most open about those ambitions and the one working the hardest to build a network as a launch platform. This report will certainly help, as it highlights the tough line Pawlenty has had to hold against a Democrat-dominated legislature and a financial crisis that would have overwhelmed others:
Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota has proposed pro-growth tax reforms, opposed tax increases, and been a relatively frugal budgeter. He has proposed cutting the state’s high and uncompetitive corporate franchise tax, and he has repeatedly vetoed giant tax-hike packages passed by the legislature, including increases to gasoline taxes, beer taxes, wine taxes, and income taxes. Under Pawlenty, state general fund spending rose modestly between FY03 and FY08 and has decreased substantially since then. The governor has also proposed a state constitutional amendment to limit general fund spending growth.
Pawlenty hasn’t won every battle, but he’s won almost all of them, a remarkable achievement in a state that clings bitterly to its progressive roots.
Some of these governors on the list are currently running for another term or another office. Pat Quinn, who took over for Rod Blagojevich when he got indicted for corruption, gets an F for his efforts to hike taxes and increase spending in Illinois. Deval Patrick may be trailing in Massachusetts, no doubt for the same reason Cato gives him a D in this report. Ohio’s Ted Strickland is definitely in the fight of his life for the same policies that got him a D from Cato, and Charlie Crist might have been better advised to run for a certain re-election rather than get into a dogfight for the US Senate, where Marco Rubio long ago exposed him as a D student as well.
We don’t have too many A students in this class, and we should be grooming them for advancement.
Can anyone tell me what is ‘so exciting’ about either of these two people?
They aren’t exciting to me but they seem to be good guys.
Yaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!!1 The Cato Institute is a buncha RINOs!!!1!!!!
I.e. doing more than some GOP rock stars did?
Difficult to see why Mitch Daniels was so low and Jennifer Granholm was so high.
After reading through the Cato Report my biggest surprise was North Dakota and its governor John Hoeven who they gave a score of 51 and a grade of C.
“Over the years, Governor Hoeven has provided modest reductions in corporate taxes, prop-erty taxes, and personal income taxes in the form of marriage penalty relief. In 2009, he signedinto law a small cut to personal and corporate income tax rates. The top personal income taxrate was cut from 5.54 percent to 4.86 percent, and the corporate rate was cut from 6.5 per-cent to 6.4 percent. However, the governor has also supported tax increases on cigarette andgasoline consumers. Hoeven’s main fiscal downfall is that he increased spending dramatical-ly during the past decade as the state experienced large revenue inflows. General fund spend-ing in FY11 is expected to be almost twice as high as in FY03”
Do they realize how much has been spent in the Western Part of the State to ensure transportation upgrades to allow for the drilling and transportation of oil? ND is a large state with few people. The cost to the state of the road projects have been significant and they did not mention the huge property tax relief by substituting oil revenue funding for support of the school systems across the state rather than property taxes.
Hoeven will in all probably win the Senate race giving the country a conservative Republican in the Senate rather than a moderately liberal Democrat in Dorgan.
Ever since CATO’s chief came out in favor of gay marriage, the organization has lost a bit of its luster in my eyes.
I still respect them, to be sure, and I think they’re probably pretty decent for economic matters—but socially, I’m not impressed.
Ever since CATO’s chief came out in favor of gay marriage, the organization has lost a bit of its luster in my eyes.
I still respect them, to be sure, and I think they’re probably pretty decent for economic matters—but socially, I’m not impressed.
RE: Ever since CATO’s chief came out in favor of gay marriage, the organization has lost a bit of its luster in my eyes.
CATO is more LIBERTARIAN in its social policies.
FISCAL policies is where they shine.
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