5. For more information on this topic, see
Michael New, "Limiting Government through
Notes
Direct Democracy: The Case of State Tax and
Expenditure Limitations," Cato Institute Policy
1. Kavan Peterson and Mark K. Matthews, "42
Analysis no. 420, December 13, 2001.
States Foresee a Surplus This Fiscal Year,"
Stateline.com, April 10, 2006.
6. Steve Moses, "The Long-Term Care Dilemma:
What States Are Doing Right and Wrong," Ameri-
2. The governor of Alaska is always excluded
can Legislative Exchange Council, September 8,
because of peculiarities in Alaska's budget that
2004.
make interstate tax comparisons problematic.
7. Zsolt Becsi, "Do State and Local Taxes Affect
3. The U.S. Bureau of the Census provides com-
Relative State Growth?" Federal Reserve Bank of
prehensive details on state spending and revenue in
Atlanta Economic Review, MarchApril 1996, p. 34.
a variety of reports on its website at www.
census.gov/govs/www/index.html. The census
8. Ibid.
data on state governments provide consistent mea-
surement of state tax and spending items across
9. Richard Vedder, "State and Local Taxation and
states. The most recent census data on tax revenue
Economic Growth: Lessons for Federal Tax Reform,"
are for FY05 and the most recent for expenditures
U.S. Congress, Joint Economic Committee, Decem-
are for FY04. All of these are available on the "State
ber 1995. See also Richard Vedder, "The Effects of
Government Finances" page of the Census Bureau
Taxes on Economic Growth: What the Research Tells
website. More recent data for state general fund
Us," Texas Public Policy Foundation, March 29,
expenditures and revenues come from various edi-
2002.
tions of the National Association of State Budget
Officers, "Fiscal Survey of the States," all of which
10. Thomas Dye, "The Economic Impact of the
are available at www.nasbo.org. Data from various
Adoption of a State Income Tax in Tennessee,"
editions of the National Conference of State
National Taxpayers Union and Tennessee Family
Legislatures publication "State Budget and Tax
Institute, October 1999.
Actions" are also used.
11. The methodology of these calculations is
4. For more information about this analysis, see
based on that used in Arthur B. Laffer and Jeffrey
Stephen Moore and Stephen Slivinski, "Fiscal
Thomson, "The 2004 Laffer State Competitive
Policy Report Card on America's Governors:
Environment," Laffer Associates, San Diego, April
2004," Cato Institute Policy Analysis no. 537,
12, 2004.
March 1, 2005.