You’ll Totally Guess Who Ranks Last in Cato’s Grading of Governors’ Fiscal Policies

The Cato Institute today
released a report grading governors across the country over their
recent fiscal policies and how well they’ve tried to rein in taxes
and spending. The good news,
according to Cato experts Chris Edwards and Nicole Kaedig, is
that “we are in the midst of the best tax-cutting run since the
late 1990s.”

The governors ranking at the top of the list of fiscal
responsibility were all Republicans while the governors at the
bottom were all Democrats. There were some Dems with pretty good
scores, though, like Lincoln Chaffee of Rhode Island and Andrew
Cuomo of New York, both of whom have worked to make their tax
environments more friendly and competitive for businesses.

Ranking dead last on the list, and it’s not even really close,
is California Gov. Jerry Brown, who has pushed forward big tax
increases and budget increases and still wants to throw billions of
dollars at the boondoggle of a high-speed rail. He scores a mere 19
points out of 100. The four governors earning A’s from Cato were
Pat McCrory of North Carolina, Sam Brownback of Kansas, Paul LePage
of Maine, and Mike Pence of Indiana, all Republicans. Cato’s
summary of the four:

• Pat McCrory of North Carolina signed a bill replacing
  individual-income-tax rates of 6.0, 7.0, and 7.75 percent with a
  single rate of 5.75 percent. He also cut the corporate-tax rate
  from 6.9 to 5.0 percent and repealed the estate tax.
• Sam Brownback of Kansas approved a plan in 2012 replacing three
  individual-income-tax rates with two and cutting the top rate from
  6.45 to 4.9 percent. The reform also increased the standard
  deduction and reduced taxes on small businesses. Brownback cut
  income-tax rates further in 2013.
• Paul LePage of Maine signed major income-tax cuts in 2011, and
  he is pushing for further tax reforms. State spending has been
  roughly flat in recent years, and LePage has trimmed spending on
  welfare, health care, and other programs.
• Mike Pence of Indiana has been frugal on spending and a
  champion tax cutter. He signed bills to cut individual-income-tax
  rates 5 percent (the current rate of 3.4 percent will fall to 3.23
  percent in 2017) and repeal the inheritance tax. He also approved a
  corporate-income-tax rate cut and a major reduction in property
  taxes on businesses.

The full report doesn’t just touch on taxes and spending. It
also analyzes some current fiscal issues states struggle with from
ballooning Medicaid costs to massive unfunded pension liabilities
(and the challenges of actually trying to put a number on the
beast). The report also knocks how many states’ versions of tax
cuts are actually designed to favor certain selected industries
over others (movie industry tax credits are smacked around) rather
than making states more hospitable to all comers.

Take a look at the full report here.
Scroll down to page 14 for governor-by-governor summaries.