Cato and Schwarzenegger

This, from the Cato Institute, caught me by surprise. I was ready to not like Schwarzenegger because I thought he was too liberal. Also, I will have to keep my eye on Bill Richardson.

"The 50 governors are meeting in Washington this week, which makes it an apt moment for the Cato Institute to release its biennial ranking of their fiscal performance," according to an editorial in today's Wall Street Journal. "Researchers Stephen Moore and Stephen Slivinski find that the top-ranked governors have learned the dual lesson that you can't tax your way to recovery and that the best way out of a deficit is to cut spending. By that measure, Arnold Schwarzenegger is the nation's best governor. The Governator has cut taxes, slashed spending, held a 'garage sale' to get rid of excess state assets, and established a budget task force that has identified $32 billion in savings over five years."
"A Fiscal Policy Report Card on America's Governors: 2004," shows that "states that keep tax rates low and restrain spending growth have the best economic performance and thus the best long term fiscal health."
New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, who earned a B, is the highest scoring Democrat in the nation and one of the best governors overall. The report card praises Richardson for cutting taxes and strictly limiting increases in state spending.