Sounds like the program was performing perfectly (killing government). Too bad the People didn't buy it. A beautiful theory laid low by ugly fact.

Conservative "thought" is wishful thinking. Since wishful thinking doesn't get you far in academia is it any wonder that guys like Norquist are appropriately rare at university level?

Gettysburg --

I'm afraid that's just ridiculous.  I have never heard any republican anywhere say that they supported more taxes at the state level.  Can you show us some public statements to demonstrate what you are suggesting?

The anti-tax mantra in republicans both at the state and federal level is unrelenting.  The problem, of course, is that anti-tax is not a policy.  Everyone wants taxes to be minimum.  Policy is what rules you pass, and where you choose to spend money.  The anti-tax movement has found a cheap trick -- separate the choices of spending (people generally like that) and the raising of revenue (people don't like that) and let the chips fall to the future.  It's an effective,  but incredibly selfish, tactic.

And, it's used at the federal level, and in every state as well.

Peter Schmitz 

Implementing "starve the beast" at the national level would have an even more deleterious effect than in Colorado, because at least Coloradoans have, in theory, the option of relocating to a neighboring state.  Many states also have constitutions which require balanced budgets, so it's even harder for pols to implement tax cuts there.  In order to deal with cuts in federal grants to states, states have recently taken to raiding localities -- grabbing increasing shares of local property taxes, for example, or insisting that local revenues offset state cutbacks to outlays to localities.  Sorry, Getty, your argument just wouldn't fly even if it were true.

Though if the argument were true, blue-staters would be nuts not to vote for Republicans, at least on the national level. It's no big secret that the Federal budget transfers money from the coastal states to the souther and plains states.

When the Republican governor of Colorado sought to get out of the tax straight jacket his state was in Norquist and other rightwing anti-taxers, anti-government went wild.  They called him a traitor and attempted to defeat his efforts. 

You forget that the tax revolt revolution did not start at the Federal level but in California.  if too many Democrats don't remember that Americans really don't like taxes too many Republicans forget Americans like government programs at both the state and federal levels.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

While not perfectly clear, Mr. Gettysburg, I suspect that the question was really, "show me a public statement anywhere where Republicans support raising taxes at the state level (particularly income or payroll taxes)." 

You did say that most Republicans wouldn't mind if the Federal and State tax witholdings were reversed.  Show us a public statement where any Republican elected official has stated that they supported such a proposition.

Find the Truth. Do Justice.

Maybe I'm missing something here.  According to Greg Anrig's description of TABOR, spending is held constant at the rate of inflation and population growth.  Presumably that doesn't necessarily mean radical cuts.  Yet spending on services like Medicaid obviously did get cut if access to services by the poor went way down. 

What am I missing here?  Why would a TABOR-like law necessarily produce the deleterious effects that Greg described?

Also, in Sullivan's defense, unlike most conservatives he is trying to get to budget balance by looking at BOTH sides of the ledger, not just spending cuts.  Ending tax loopholes, restoring the estate tex, imposing a higher gas tax.  The radical right would howl in outrage.  It's that, more than anything else, that discredits fiscal conservatism as it is now understood.

But most fiscal conservatives agree that most of the money would need to come from things like entitlement reform.  And it's here that liberals need to come to grips with reality.  Medicare is unsustainable in its current form.  Social Security is less dire but still needs to be tweaked.  Some kind of means-testing makes perfect sense and should be on the table.

Didn't the people of Colorado vote for an increase in education spending that was incompatible with TABOR?

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Greg's exactly right; the Consumer Price Index is a very poor measure of inflation for the things government buys.

The other problem is that  when the economy goes south, as it did in Colorado during the 90s, growth sputters. Under TABOR (which BTW limits revenue, not spending), the baseline revenue level is locked in at the worst revenue year forever - or until the voters approve an increase.

Yes of course.  Health and education costs are exploding.

Not sure the "fiscal progressivism" line works for me.  Myself, I'd just prefer a return to the real meaning of "conservative" before it got perverted by the current lot in power.  To me, conservatism means exactly what you say - getting the most bang for the buck and paying as you go.  Being a fiscal conservative is ENTIRELY compatible with being a progressive.

I think we would do better to try to re-brand the spend-and-borrow policies of the GOP to make their irresponsible, nonsensical nature quite clear.  Instead of calling them fiscal "conservatives", I think we should call them "fiscal terrorists".  That way, Democrats can be strong on security and strong on economics at the same time. A twofer!

This is a good point.  Subsidiarity is good.  The problem with it is the "race to the bottom" ie the "race to Delaware" problem.  If the state raises taxes, corporations can easily relocate to lower tax states.   Yes, a corporation can relocate outside America, but not near so easily.

A possible solution might be a focus on block grants to the states allocated per capita according to census estimates--allow the revenue to be collected at the federal level, but spent by the states. How do you think fiscal conservatives would feel about such a plan? 

The main thing screwed up in this discussion is the idea that citizens are behind all these draconian tax limitation laws.  Demagogic politicians are the irresponsible party who dream up these stupid ideas.  After 3/4 a century of TV advertising (and plenty of naive behavior before that), citizens are conditioned to believe any good news advertising that is sold to 'em.  But it is self-interested politicians who do the selling. 

It is, unfortunately, the case that citizens do NOT learn by experience.  When told that the government can trim down, even when government is already underperforming due to underfunding, citizens are gullible enough to swallow it.  Also, citizens tend to forget what government actually does for them until someone takes it away.

What I would like to see would be for governments to respond to TABOR laws by taking away services that affect the politicians who dream them up.  Stop services that help the well-to-do.  For example, cut back on investigation of white collar crime, and specifically avoid those crimes that only the well off experience in the first place, eliminate tax breaks expenditures for cultural centers, charge banks a user  fee equal to actual costs to audit them, provide zero state support to schools in above median income communities, with a little creativity this demagoguery can be turned arround on its proponents. 
 

Rhetoric Buster

Would you care to list any citations to back up your claims?  It would appear from the surface as if you employ the same intellectual crime in your post as you accuse me of doing.

Daniel

There definitely is a misunderstanding among a serious portion of Americans with regard to taxation and its purposes.  With that being said, most complaints about taxation fall along the lines of wasted money or poor distribution of funds.  Someone in Wyoming, for instance, is likely not thrilled that a good portion of their tax money goes to, say, pave roads in California or fight street gangs in Chicago.  If a preponderance of tax dollars could be kept within the borders of the states where the people pay it, it would seem likely that a great deal more people would consent.  For example, if the man in Wyoming knew his tax dollars were going towards paving roads in Wyoming (as opposed to California) not only would be lose a substantial part of his argument against taxation, but the possibility exists that he might favor the system.  As Federal taxation increases, state taxation is almost forced to decrease.  It would be better if the opposite were true.

This argument would be more convincing were it not for the fact that the blue states tend to be net donors of federal tax money.  That is, the citizens of those states pay more in federal taxes than they get back in the way of services.  The red states tend, on average, to be net recipients of federal tax dollars.  Most of this is due to the simple fact that blue states are on average wealthier.

Much of the opposition to federal spending is of course rooted in simple selfishness.  If I am not personally benefitting from this or that government service, then why should I support it?  This is also why the GOP had such a hard time with Social Security.  Everyone in the country benefits from it, so they don't want crazed ideologues monkeying around with it.  Sadly, no such broad constituency exists for other programs.

But while selfishness may explain some, it doens't explain all of the anti-government sentiment in this country.  For that, you can only blame Republican propaganda.  This has taken a number of forms. 

First, place undue emphasis on parts of the federal budget that are tiny but which can be exploited for propaganda purposes, like welfare spending or foreign aid.  Reagan was the pioneer of welfare demagoguery, but it's a conservative staple still.  Foreign aid is a miniscule part of the budget, but in some surveys some people think its the largest item in the budget.  Another product of Republican dishonesty.

Second, label any government activity at all oppressive.  This was another Reagan innovation.  Reagan's rhetoric made it seem like we were living in a socialist paradise, with an oppressive state that was hell bent on squashing all business activity and innovation.  Just get the government "off peoples' backs" and all will be well.  I suppose it's better than racial scapegoating, but it's just as dishonest.

Third, never ever praise the good job that many of our dedicated civil servants do (unless they're in the military).  Denigrating the bureaucracy is hardly unique to America, of course, but Republicans used to talk about "public service" as something worthy and noble.  You hardly ever hear that anymore.

What Republicans discovered of course is that this sort of propaganda is extremely hard to counter.  No one wants to come out in favor of bureaucrats.  No one wants to defend how great the government works.  No one wants to robustly defend welfare and foreign aid.  That's why demgoguery of this sort works so well.  It's always more difficult being the guy who has to get up and explain why taxes are sometimes necessary or why foreign aid is a good idea or why some regulation makes sense etc.  It's so much easier to pander to the base instincts of the electorate.

Your point still doens't hold up.

Wyoming would have to raise their state taxes substantially to make up for the lost federal dollars to pay for the services they already get from the federal government.  Let alone deal with any of these new problems your talking about.

If what your saying is that all the money WY gets from the federal government is wasted on things WY doesn't need, then show us your examples.

RogerGathman

The interesting thing about red states is how their conservatism makes them dependent on truly productive states, which are now nearly all blue. By cutting taxes and investing nothing in regulatory infastructure or human resources, states like Colorado become parasites on states like New York -- depending on inflows, for instance, of educated people who were educated in states where they actually care about education and pay for it.

Texas is the quintessential dependent state. In the eighties, its regulatory infrastructure was so poor that it literally let 50 to 100 billion dollars escape in the great s & l swindles -- and the money that made up for that came from blue states with real and functioning regulatory infrastructures.

One has to stop thinking of conservatism as an ideology. It is, rather, a type of parasitism -- an attempt to cast free-rider status as a noble anti-statist cause. It is no surprise that Bush conservatism has ballooned spending and cut taxes -- this is the freerider credo par excellence. Eventually, the burden of supporting the red states is going to seriously impair the U.S. as a whole. One notices that, fifty years after Mississippi bribed industry to come to the state by awarding massive tax breaks to, in essence, shift the cost of industry to poorer third parties, this is still the only policy red states can come up with. This is why they will never, ever be anything but hotbeds of illiteracy, poverty, and Republican party fanaticism -- the iron triangle.