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Introduction

Today, more than at any time in half a century, state

governments in America are under the command of Republicans.

Nowhere is the GOP's ascendancy at the state level more evi-

dent than in the party's nearly two-to-one lead over the

Democrats in governorships.  Thirty-two of the governors are

Republicans, 17 are Democrats, and one, Angus King of Maine,

is an independent.  Only 2 of the 10 most populous states,

Florida and Georgia, have Democratic governors.  That is a

dramatic shift in party control from 15 years ago when only

22 governors were Republicans.  Adding to the Democrats'

woes at the state level is the fact that the GOP has stead-

ily gained seats in state legislatures across the nation as

well.  Since 1992 the Republicans have picked up nearly 500

seats in the state legislatures and have gone from control-

ling 27 percent of the state legislative houses to control-

ling just under half of them.

It is in this new era of Republican domination of

statehouses that we provide the results of the Cato Insti-

tute's fourth biennial "Fiscal Policy Report Card on Amer-

1

ica's Governors."

The study is a comparative analysis of

the budget and tax records of 46 governors.  (Jane Hull of

Arizona, Paul Cellucci of Massachusetts, and Jim Gilmore of

Virginia are not included because they assumed office too

recently for it to be possible to fully assess their rec-

ords.  Tony Knowles of Alaska is excluded because of peculi-

arities in Alaska's budget that make interstate tax compari-

sons problematic.)  The report card provides an index of the

fiscal restraint imposed by each governor.  Those who cut

taxes and spending the most receive the highest grades.

Those who raised taxes and spending the most receive the

poorest grades.

The grading mechanism is based on purely objective

measures of fiscal performance.  With a few minor refine-

ments in the grading system, the study is based on the pro-

cedures developed in the previous three studies.  All of the

spending and tax data come from the Bureau of the Census,

the National Association of State Budget Officers, the Na-

tional Conference of State Legislatures, and individual

state budget and revenue departments.

Table 1 presents the overall fiscal policy grades of

each of the 46 governors.  (More detailed tables are found

in Appendix A.)  Two governors receive an A on our 1998 re-

port card: William Janklow of South Dakota and John Rowland

of Connecticut.  Three governors receive the grade of F: