The Cato Institute has released its annual tax report card on the nation’s governors.The report card’s grading is based on 15 objective measures of fiscal performance. Governors who have cut taxes and spending the most receive the highest grades. Those who have increased spending and taxes the most receive the lowest grades.
* Executive Summary
* Report (72 pages)
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This annual exercise serves very little purpose beyond publicity for the authors and governors who score well.
Several years ago, the authors awarded a high score to the sitting governor of Massachusetts, who had presided over a major increase in income tax rates and a state government budget growing at over twice the rate of inflation. When I wrote the authors and asked for an explanation, one responded that they graded “on the curve.”
The claims of objective standards are misleading at best. The standards may be objective, but the scores themselves are altered to provide the highest entertainment value, nothing more.
arnold received the highest grade! No surprize there from cato!
That being said, I don’t know if Arnold is really a fiscal conservative. McClintock would have been the best choice in that recall election – as not just conservatives, but also libertarians, and perhaps even some liberals, believed. I am not a Californian, but I wish he had won.
(And I wish that we had the “recall” provision over here…
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