Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Contributors
- PART ONE THE LAW AND POLITICS OF FISCAL POLICY
- PART TWO UNDERSTANDING FEDERAL DEFICITS AND PUBLIC DEBT
- PART THREE BUDGETING AND FISCAL CONSTRAINTS AT THE STATE LEVEL
- 8 Budgetary Arrangements in the 50 States: In Search of Model Practices
- 9 The Calculus of Constraint: A Critical Review of State Fiscal Institutions
- 10 When Does the Ballot Box Limit the Budget? Politics and Spending Limits in California, Colorado, Utah, and Washington
- Part Three Bibliography
- PART FOUR INTERGOVERNMENTAL ASPECTS OF BUDGET POLICY
- PART FIVE JUDICIAL POWERS AND BUDGET POLICY
- Index
10 - When Does the Ballot Box Limit the Budget? Politics and Spending Limits in California, Colorado, Utah, and Washington
Politics and Spending Limits in California, Colorado, Utah, and Washington
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Contributors
- PART ONE THE LAW AND POLITICS OF FISCAL POLICY
- PART TWO UNDERSTANDING FEDERAL DEFICITS AND PUBLIC DEBT
- PART THREE BUDGETING AND FISCAL CONSTRAINTS AT THE STATE LEVEL
- 8 Budgetary Arrangements in the 50 States: In Search of Model Practices
- 9 The Calculus of Constraint: A Critical Review of State Fiscal Institutions
- 10 When Does the Ballot Box Limit the Budget? Politics and Spending Limits in California, Colorado, Utah, and Washington
- Part Three Bibliography
- PART FOUR INTERGOVERNMENTAL ASPECTS OF BUDGET POLICY
- PART FIVE JUDICIAL POWERS AND BUDGET POLICY
- Index
Summary
The debate over whether to enact a tax and expenditure limit (TEL) in California has been one of the key policy battles of Arnold Schwarzenegger's governorship. During the recall campaign, Schwarzenegger voiced his support for a limit as a cold turkey cure for the legislature's “addiction” to spending. Soon after his election, he threatened to propose an initiative capping total expenditures, though he eventually compromised and worked with Democrats to enact a tighter balanced-budget requirement. Two years later, he followed through on his threat and put a spending limit on the ballot, only to see it lose badly when voters blanched at the school funding cuts that it might deliver. Rarely mentioned in this debate over whether California needs a TEL, however, is the fact that it already has one.
Proposition 4, the “Gann limit,” was passed in 1979 as part of the state's famed tax revolt and established a formula limiting the growth of expenditures of tax dollars. Although its formula has been modified, the Gann limit is still in effect, and Poterba and Rueben's cross-state analysis of TELs still categorizes it as “binding.” Yet California's fiscal history – along with the current debate over a spending limit – suggests that the Gann limit has not constrained the growth of state government. Since its passage, total spending in the state has continued to exceed the national average by about the same margin.
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- Chapter
- Information
- Fiscal ChallengesAn Interdisciplinary Approach to Budget Policy, pp. 290 - 321Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008
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