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Voters are not fiscal conservatives
In all three states where TABOR-style spending caps [Taxpayer Bill of Rights] were placed on the ballot, they were defeated...voters in recent years have repealed TABORs across the country, notably in Colorado, where the first one was enacted in 1992. Yesterday, the three new attempts to institute the rules were flatly rejected.
That is from a very happy Ezra Klein.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on November 9, 2006 at 07:13 AM in Political Science | Permalink
Comments
You can view these initatives as referendums on the question: "are government services necessities or luxury goods?". Necessities (e.g. water) are (approximately) fixed costs; as income grows, the fraction spent on them decreases. The fraction of income spent on a luxury good (e.g. wine) increases with income.
Personally, I view government services as necessities: you buy your army and public infrastructure, pay your poor people enough not to starve, and you're done. But the defeat of such initatives, not to mention the increases in government spending as a share of GDP that most nations have experienced as they developed, indicate that most people view government services as luxuries for which they can splash out more the richer their societies get.
This does not bode well for us tight-wads who would like to see government spending as a percent of GDP decrease in the future.
Posted by: David Wright at Nov 9, 2006 8:52:05 AM
I can go ahead and confirm that Ezra Klein is a moron. More specifically, he speaks without knowing what he is talking about. Doubtless he will go far in Washington.
What about the overwhelming passage of Amendment 6 in South Carolina? (Think: CA Prop 13 with a southern accent.) I'd bet my bottom dollar that Klein has never heard of it.
And what the hell is he talking about with TABOR repeals across the country? Unless I'm mistaken--and I don't think I am--Colorado is the only one. And that was a very narrow vote.
Klein should question his own omniscience. The day he shuts the hell up is the day that the blogosphere gets a little smarter.
Posted by: ticked off at Nov 9, 2006 9:52:48 AM
Tyler,
Here in Houston we also passed a municipal Revcap in 2003:
http://www.taborhouston.com/
In the State of Texas, there is language where in home rule cities, citizens can put propositions on the ballot if they gain 20,000 signatures. We did this for a revcap in 2001, but the city secretary did not verify the signatures in time for the 2001 election. It took her office 48 days to verify that there were 28,000 signatures. We took the city to court over the matter, but dropped the suit when we realized there was nothing to gain from it.
Without going into details (translated - legal BS) over the matter, it wasn't until 2004 that we had a chance to have the revcap put on the ballot. By then we had a new Mayor who put his own highly watered down version of a revcap on the ballot. Both passed, with the Mayor's getting slightly more votes than ours. The politcal classes tried to nullify ours in court, but a judge ruled that both propositions had to be put into effect.
Now we just had another election - 5 years after our revcap was initially presented to City Council - where Mayor Bill White put a slew of propositions on the ballot, mostly bond issues to the tune of $625 million. All passed. Not only that but the legal language removes so called "enterprise funds" (airport, etc) from the revcap. The general effect of these propositions will be that our revcap has been nullified.
Sadly, all I have to offer MR readers is yet another tale of how the political classes, the politicians, the government employees (police department, fire department, etc), and all the interest groups beat us once again.
The City Council voted yesterday to cut the property tax rate less than 1 cent. That's all nice, but in 1984 our property taxes rates were much lower:
http://www.hcadtea.org/
My property vales will probably end up going up a good 10% or more next year. Don't forget that here in Houston we still have a hot real estate market right now thanks to high oil and natural gas prices.
The City of Houston has debt levels somewhere in the area of $10 billion. The main problem down here is that it is now open season once again and the legalized theft can now recommence undisturbed.
Posted by: Neal Meyer at Nov 9, 2006 11:08:37 AM
Colorado didn't fully repeal TABOR; they just put it on a haitus. The so-called "screwdriver effect" was really limiting the amount of money that the state could spend following the slowdown during 2001, so in 2004 the state passed a bond issue (one of two on the ballot) so that state spending could return to pre-slowdown levels. I'm pretty sure Colorado is the only state with a TABOR that has a screwdriver effect.
Also, this happened with the backing of a Republican governor (some) Republican state officials and several Republican civic leaders (university presidents, for example). The reasoning was that if the state couldn't return spending to where it previously was, TABOR would be fully repealed sometime in the future.
Posted by: t_do at Nov 9, 2006 11:34:03 AM
What people vote for and what people want are very different things.
Also, why would anybody consider it a victory if voters aren't fiscal conservatives. Certainly nobody endores spending more money than is necessary. At least, I hope not.
Posted by: josh at Nov 9, 2006 2:00:18 PM
"Voters are not fiscal conservatives."
Wow. Who knew?
Posted by: bernard Yomtov at Nov 9, 2006 3:28:53 PM
josh,
Words have meanings.
Posted by: theCoach at Nov 9, 2006 5:09:03 PM
The Colorado TABOR was a typical example of overreach on the part of the right. It reminds me of the anti gay marriage proposal: instead of proposing an amendment that would protect states' rights (i.e., a constitutionalization of the DOMA -- a legitimate exercise in protecting federalism, IMO) social conservatives (naturally) went the extra step of trying to force, say, liberal Massachusetts to live by, say, conservative Mississippi's social mores.
TABOR was similar, in that it it required a reduction in the size of Colorado's government relative to gross state product. A more prudent and moderate but sill fairly aggressive approach would have been to limit increases in the state budget to the growth in the size of the state's economy (rather than population plus inflation). Prudence and moderation, though, characterized your father's Republican party, not your son's.
Posted by: Jasper at Nov 10, 2006 3:53:40 PM
Voters are not fiscal extremists. They may still be conservatives and want to see revenues match expenses.
Posted by: Lord at Nov 10, 2006 5:53:06 PM
OK.
I live in Colorado.
I voted against TABOR in 1992 because I thought we had a "representative" government and these people (legislators) were elected to do our bidding (with some common sense added).
TABOR passed. And State spending went up only by inflation + population growth. In California, they went crazy with spending their new found income stream.
Then comes the recession after March 2001 and State revenue went down by a very small amount. Well, the legislature could not spend money they did not have. Thank god (pick one of your choice). In California, they said "Oops" (insert large increase in debt here).
Colorado voters did not "repeal" TABOR. We voted to give it a "time out". For the next five (5) there is no TABOR constraint. After that, it kicks in again.
In hindsight, the voters were smart in 1992. TABOR prevented our spendthrift legislators from going hog wild as they did in California (and in Washington, DC).
TABOR has worked well in Colorado.
,dave
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