Grading the Governors

The Wall Street Journal ^ | 1 March 2005 | WSJ Editorial Page

[Paladin2b]

The 50 governors are meeting in Washington this week, which makes it an apt moment for the Cato Institute to release its biennial ranking of their fiscal performance. We provide the rankings below (governors who recently took office aren't included) and, in addition, let us mention a few notable findings from the survey, which will be released today.

[Paladin2b]

Why am I not surprised that tenure in office tends to make one more and more RINO-esque?

[82Marine89]

Is there a dummy email and password we can use to view the story?

[Paladin2b]

try bugmenot.com

[Wonder Warthog]

Instead of selecting the lead paragraph as the "excerpt", why not simply post the rankings?? That "would" satisfy the excerpting requirements and capture the real meat of the article.

[evad]

What does it say??

[Paladin2b]

(the remainder of teh article)...
Researchers Stephen Moore and Stephen Slivinski find that the top-ranked governors have learned the dual lesson that you can't tax your way to recovery and that the best way out of a deficit is to cut spending. By that measure, Arnold Schwarzenegger is the nation's best governor. The Governator has cut taxes, slashed spending, held a "garage sale" to get rid of excess state assets, and established a budget task force that has identified $32 billion in savings over five years.
The best Democratic governor is also a relative newcomer. Bill Richardson has cut New Mexico's top rate of personal income tax to 5% from 8.2%, reduced the capital gains tax and kept spending in check. Contrast Mr. Richardson's performance with that of another Democratic Presidential hopeful: Mark Warner, who enacted the biggest tax increase in Virginia's history.
What about the governors who have been around for a while? One of Messrs. Moore and Slivinski's most interesting findings is that the longer the Republicans have been in office, the more inclined they are to succumb to a tax-and-spend mentality.
The rankings cover all of a governor's time in office. George Pataki's B would drop to a C without his first term, when he slashed New York taxes. He has since increased spending so much that a huge tax increase passed over his veto. If Bill Owens were judged just by his recent attempts to alter Colorado's tax limitation law, he would not be considered A material. Florida's Jeb Bush, who earned an A two years ago, has slipped to a B after endorsing more bloated budgets.
Finally, we'll note the bipartisan nature of Cato's F students: Republican Bob Taft of Ohio and Democrat Edward Rendell of Pennsylvania.

[evad]

thanks