In all three states where TABOR-style spending caps [Taxpayer Bill of Rights] were placed on the ballot, they were defeated…voters in recent years have repealed TABORs across the country, notably
in Colorado, where the first one was enacted in 1992. Yesterday, the
three new attempts to institute the rules were flatly rejected.
That is from a very happy Ezra Klein.
You can view these initatives as referendums on the question: “are government services necessities or luxury goods?”. Necessities (e.g. water) are (approximately) fixed costs; as income grows, the fraction spent on them decreases. The fraction of income spent on a luxury good (e.g. wine) increases with income.
Personally, I view government services as necessities: you buy your army and public infrastructure, pay your poor people enough not to starve, and you’re done. But the defeat of such initatives, not to mention the increases in government spending as a share of GDP that most nations have experienced as they developed, indicate that most people view government services as luxuries for which they can splash out more the richer their societies get.
This does not bode well for us tight-wads who would like to see government spending as a percent of GDP decrease in the future.
Tyler,
Here in Houston we also passed a municipal Revcap in 2003:
http://www.taborhouston.com/
In the State of Texas, there is language where in home rule cities, citizens can put propositions on the ballot if they gain 20,000 signatures. We did this for a revcap in 2001, but the city secretary did not verify the signatures in time for the 2001 election. It took her office 48 days to verify that there were 28,000 signatures. We took the city to court over the matter, but dropped the suit when we realized there was nothing to gain from it.
Without going into details (translated – legal BS) over the matter, it wasn’t until 2004 that we had a chance to have the revcap put on the ballot. By then we had a new Mayor who put his own highly watered down version of a revcap on the ballot. Both passed, with the Mayor’s getting slightly more votes than ours. The politcal classes tried to nullify ours in court, but a judge ruled that both propositions had to be put into effect.
Now we just had another election – 5 years after our revcap was initially presented to City Council – where Mayor Bill White put a slew of propositions on the ballot, mostly bond issues to the tune of $625 million. All passed. Not only that but the legal language removes so called “enterprise funds” (airport, etc) from the revcap. The general effect of these propositions will be that our revcap has been nullified.
Sadly, all I have to offer MR readers is yet another tale of how the political classes, the politicians, the government employees (police department, fire department, etc), and all the interest groups beat us once again.
The City Council voted yesterday to cut the property tax rate less than 1 cent. That’s all nice, but in 1984 our property taxes rates were much lower:
http://www.hcadtea.org/
My property vales will probably end up going up a good 10% or more next year. Don’t forget that here in Houston we still have a hot real estate market right now thanks to high oil and natural gas prices.
The City of Houston has debt levels somewhere in the area of $10 billion. The main problem down here is that it is now open season once again and the legalized theft can now recommence undisturbed.
What people vote for and what people want are very different things.
Also, why would anybody consider it a victory if voters aren’t fiscal conservatives. Certainly nobody endores spending more money than is necessary. At least, I hope not.
josh,
Words have meanings.
Voters are not fiscal extremists. They may still be conservatives and want to see revenues match expenses.
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