5.09.00
States of Confusion

5.08.00
Congress Busts the Bank — Again

4.26.00
Soak the Rich: Cut the Capital Gains Tax

4.12.00
How the Other Half Thinks

4.06.00
Taxing Fantasies

t the state GOP convention last weekend in Utah, conservatives booed and jeered Republican governor Michael Leavitt. Then they threw enough support behind his conservative challenger that Mr. Leavitt must face the indignity of a primary from the right in his reelection bid. Why the antipathy toward Leavitt? Start with the fact that he has consistently promoted tax-and-spend policies in Salt Lake City for the better part of six years. Voters are getting fed up with his brand of Republican liberalism. Add to that the irritation sparked by Leavitt’s notorious scheming to enact a national Internet tax.

But Leavitt isn’t the only GOP governor to defect from the fiscal-conservative course that won Republicans 31 state houses in the first place. Although the Republican governors are heralded in the press and at the RNC as the superstars of the GOP, this year their philosophy of good governance has more closely resembled Nelson Rockefeller than Ronald Reagan. Thanks to the booming economy, state revenues have been growing by 6-8 percent per year, but tax cutting is conspicuously absent from most of the Republican governors’ grand plans. Incredibly, a handful of Republican governors want to raise taxes this year.

Here are some of the recent low lights:

· George Pataki of New York signed a whopping 55-cent-a-pack increase in the cigarette tax, and proposes an 8 percent increase in the budget.

· Tennessee’s Don Sundquist, easily the worst governor in America, continues to push a first-ever income tax in the Volunteer State. Sundquist is now routinely booed at Tennessee professional and collegiate sporting events.

· Jane Hull of Arizona wants to raise the sales tax from 5 to 5.6 percent to pay for more school spending.

· In Illinois, George Ryan raised taxes by $400 million last year, but has no tax cuts worthy of the name this year, despite one of the largest surpluses in state history.

· Louisiana’s Mike Foster won an extension of the 3 percent sales tax on food and utilities. Foster says tax cuts are "overrated."

· Bob Taft of Ohio raised taxes last year; has no tax cut proposal this year; supports spending every dime of the tobacco-settlement money; and proposed a $200-million environmental-bond initiative.

· West Virginia’s Cecil Underwood wants a tobacco tax hike and signed a tax increase on rental cars.

· Wyoming’s Jim Geringer wants to raise the state fuel tax by 6 cents a gallon.

All of this when states are experiencing gigantic budget surpluses.

Yes, there are about a dozen GOP governors who’ve continued to promote supply-side pro-growth tax policies (about which I will write in an upcoming NR Online column), but increasingly the tax cutters are the outcasts when the Republican governors get together to exchange notes. Rumor is that Governor James Gilmore of Virginia — a genuine champion of taxpayer causes — is not well liked by many of his colleagues. Why? Because of his unflinching opposition to Internet taxation.

One thing is for certain: If this new breed of Republican governors, represented by Messrs. Taft, Ryan, Foster, and Pataki, and Ms. Hull, represent the future of the GOP, it’s a bleak future indeed — for both conservatives and the party.

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