July 20, 2014 11:55AM # Is Fiscal Constraint a Bug or a Feature? By [David Boaz](https://www.cato.org/people/david-boaz) --- SHARE A Washington Post profile of Art Pope, political donor and now budget director of North Carolina, finds a flaw in his fiscal management: > For all of his pull, the revolution Pope helped set in motion is not going quite as planned. The tax overhaul, styled in part off ideas promoted by Pope-backed groups, [has contributed to tight finances](http://www.newsobserver.com/2014/05/06/3840113/budget-disaster-of-gigantic-proportions.html) in North Carolina at a time when other states are flush with cash. Is that bad? Fiscal conservatives such as Pope just might think that budgetary constraints are a good thing, perhaps especially when revenues would otherwise be rising, leading to profligacy. State governments have a tendency to [overspend](http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2012/06/20/austerity_now_krugman_et_al_tell_us_99727.html) when the economy booms, and then face [difficult adjustments](http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2008/10/08/states-localities-are-spending-themselves-trouble-reports-show) in downturns. Limits on overspending, whether constitutional constraints or tax reductions, should be seen as a feature, not a bug, in state fiscal systems. By the way, this Post profile of Pope, who is a contributor to the Cato Institute, is not exactly positive, but it’s nothing like Jane Mayer’s 2011 profile in the New Yorker, which I dubbed “[Snidely Whiplash in North Carolina](https://www.cato.org/blog/snidely-whiplash-north-carolina).” ##### Related Tags [Government and Politics](https://www.cato.org/government-politics), [Tax and Budget Policy](https://www.cato.org/tax-budget-policy) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).