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A nationwide campaign to use the ballot box to rein in state
spending has fizzled even before voters had a chance to weigh in on Nov. 7.
While voters in Maine, Nebraska and Oregon
will consider ballot measures that cap increases in state spending, similar
“Stop Over Spending” initiatives got booted off ballots in Michigan,
Montana, Nevada
and Oklahoma
primarily because of concerns about the validity of the signatures.
The paltry number of states that have spending limit measures on
the ballot is a far cry from the nearly two dozen states that conservative
political strategists and grassroots anti-tax crusaders had hoped for when
the year began.
“We’ll be back in all those states,” said Grover Norquist, whose Americans for
Tax Reform group is a lead organizer of the state ballot measures. He blamed
“annoying technicalities” for knocking off the spending limit measures in
those states.
The measures also won’t appear on the Ohio,
Missouri and Rhode Island ballots. In Ohio, Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell
and Republican candidate for governor, pushed to have voters consider a
constitutional amendment to cap state spending, but decided to settle for a
less sweeping plan from the Legislature after the issue generated opposition
on the campaign trail.
In Missouri,
the secretary of state ruled that signature gatherers failed to follow
specific rules and refused to put the measure on the ballot. And in Rhode Island, the state high court said
Republican Gov. Don Carcieri exceeded his authority
by putting a non-binding spending cap on the ballot.
Sujit CanagaRetna,
a tax and budget expert at the Council of State
Governments, said Colorado’s experience with its
strictest-in-the-nation spending limit “pulled the wind out of the sails” of
the campaign in other states.
Colorado voters in 2005
decided to suspend for five years their Taxpayer Bill of Rights, commonly
known as TABOR, agreeing the limits were cutting too deeply into education,
transportation and other programs. “TABOR strangled the state budget slowly,
squeezing tighter every year, said Nick Johnson, who heads up the state
fiscal project of the Center on Budget and
Policy Priorities.
TABOR ties the growth in state revenue to population plus
inflation and requires the state give back to voters any extra revenue, but
Johnson says that formula doesn’t capture the growth in the costs of the
goods and services that the state buys. So each year, he says, the state is
forced to spend a little less and the gap grows over time.
TABOR opponents say Colorado
dropped from 35th to 49th in the nation for K-12 school funding because of
TABOR. Supporters, however, credit TABOR for making Colorado an economic powerhouse in the
West.
Pete Sepp, a spokesman for the
National Taxpayers Union, which promotes state spending caps, rejects the
notion that the low number of TABOR-like ballot measures this November is a
public repudiation of TABOR. “People didn’t have an opportunity to have a
debate on the merits of the proposal. It’s premature to make a judgment
call,” he said.
Maine’s ballot measure is
the most similar to Colorado’s
in that it requires voter approval before taxes can be increased and applies
to both revenues and expenditures by state and local governments. Nebraska and Oregon
measures only apply to state expenditures and tax hikes do not require voter
approval.
Track these spending limit measures and other statewide ballot
measures on Stateline.org’s
Election guide, which also features races for governor, lieutenant
governor, attorney general and secretary of state.
Colorado’s experience with
TABOR is playing prominently in all three states. In Maine, for example,
supporters of the TABOR-like measure recently unveiled a television ad featuring
Republican Colorado Gov. Bill Owens, who in the commercials says he “wants to
set the record straight” about TABOR. “The Taxpayer Bill of Rights has been a
tremendous success here in Colorado
– more jobs, lower taxes and young people choosing to stay in our state,” the
governor said, failing to add that he supported TABOR’s
suspension. Owens is term-limited and legally prevented from running this
November.
In Oregon, Gov. Ted Kulongoski (D), who is running for re-election, has
invited wealthy New York real estate
developer Howard Rich to debate the spending limits measure that Rich helped
put on the Oregon
ballot. Kulongoski opposes the plan. Rich, who has
served on libertarian-leaning organizations such as Americans For Limited
Government, the Cato Institute, and Club for Growth State Action, declined Kulongoski’s invitation.
Rich also has been a chief backer of TABOR-like measures in
other states, including Maine and Nebraska, and property
rights measures on several state ballots.
In Nebraska,
Democratic gubernatorial nominee David Hahn opposes the “Stop Over Spending
Nebraska” ballot initiative saying, “This proposal is not fiscal surgery, it
is irresponsible butchery.” The Associated Press reported.
CanagaRetna of the Council of
State Governments predicts TABOR’s “fiscal
straitjacket” will likely have to be tweaked to garner more support.
Norquist disputes that TABOR is inflexible or
that the measure has failed in Colorado.
“Colorado
shows that it can be flexible” because technically TABOR remains in effect.
While Colorado
voters temporarily shelved TABOR’s mandate to
return extra revenue to taxpayers, they kept in effect the provision that
prohibits a tax hike without voters’ approval. “It’s still working,” Norquist said.
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