There are 33 comments.

1. Inactive
   Fred Cole

   @FredCole

   6:13 PM EDT ⋅ May 22, 2016

   And here is the 2000 report card:

   http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa391.pdf

   Gary E. Johnson, Republican

   Legislature: Democratic

   Took Office: 1/95

   Grade: B

   Gary E. Johnson has gained a welldeserved reputation as a maverick governor. More so than just about any prominent politician in America today, Johnson has a libertarian attitude when it comes to government. In this liberal-leaning state, Johnson supports school vouchers, term limits, privately run prisons, drug legalization, and deep tax cuts. He’s a genuine citizen-lawmaker who never held public office before winning the statehouse in 1994. He competes in iron-man sporting competitions around the country; he started his own construction company while in college, and now he spends his time warring with the Democrats in the New Mexico state legislature. Governing magazine says, “No governor has been more open in his contempt for the opposition party or the legislative leaders than Johnson.” In his first term he vetoed 200 bills. After his reelection in 1998 he warned the legislators that he was not going to be “the kinder, gentler Gary Johnson.” Few governors have been more ferocious advocates of taxpayers than Johnson has in recent years. Battling the legislators at every turn, Johnson has succeeded in cutting the state income tax, the gasoline tax, the state capital gains tax, and the unemployment tax. In 1999 he vetoed a 12-cent-apack cigarette tax hike—not because he likes smoking, he says, but because he opposes all tax hikes. In 2000 he signed a residential property tax cap that will limit increases in valuations to 3 percent per year. He also wants to cut the income tax from 8.2 to 6.8 percent. He calls the plan a $177 a year “pay raise for New Mexicans.” So far the legislature has foiled that tax-cutting plan. Johnson has successfully sponsored other government reform initiatives including an electricity deregulation bill, a 10 percent reduction in state payrolls, and a Medicaid cost-cutting plan that has saved the state tens of millions of dollars. In sum, Johnson has had a sterling pro-taxpayer, pro-business record over the past six years. New Mexico has one of the highest percentages of its workforce working for federal or state government, but Johnson is slowly eroding the culture of dependence on government in New Mexico. It’s no wonder the state’s economy has been booming in recent years.

2. Inactive
   Fred Cole

   @FredCole

   6:17 PM EDT ⋅ May 22, 2016

   And here is the 2002 report card:

   http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa454.pdf

   I bolded the part at the end.

   New Mexico

   Gary Johnson, Republican

   Legislature: Democratic

   Took Office: 1/95

   Grade: B

   Gary Johnson has gained a national reputation as a maverick governor. He is probably best known for endorsing drug legalization, because he says the war on drugs has done more harm than good. Johnson sports a libertarian attitude toward government. He favors school vouchers, term limits, privately run prisons, lean budgets, and deep tax cuts. He is a genuine citizen-lawmaker, having never held public office before winning the statehouse in 1994. Governingmagazine said that “no governor has been more open in his contempt for the opposition party or the legislative leaders than Johnson.” In his first term, he vetoed 200 bills—many of them spending bills, which he labeled as profligate. The state Democrats made defeating Johnson their top priority in 1998, but he won anyway. The feuding continued and his veto total is now up to 750. Only a handful have been overridden—unfortunately one of those overrides was of the 2003 budget. He said he would operate the state agencies at last year’s budget levels. Through determination and wearing down the opposition, he has had legislative successes. He has cut the state income tax, the gasoline tax, the state capital gains tax, and the unemployment tax. In 2001, he wanted a further 7 percent reduction in income tax rates. The legislature cut the tax less than he wanted, so he vetoed the bill. In 1999, he vetoed a 12 cent per pack cigarette tax hike because he opposes all tax hikes. (He recently did sign off on a tobacco tax with the condition that the revenues be used to offset other tax cuts.) In 2000, he signed a residential property tax cap that will limit increases in valuations to 3 percent per year. Johnson has successfully sponsored other government reform initiatives such as an electricity deregulation bill, a 10 percent reduction in state payrolls, and a Medicaid cost-cutting plan. What is most surprising about his fiscally conservative governance is that New Mexico is a state that has one of the highest percentages of employment in federal and state governments. But he has done much to create private-sector jobs and to erode the culture of dependence on government in New Mexico. The Speaker of the House in New Mexico, Ben Lujan, recently noted after an override of a Johnson veto: “There is no executive fiat in this state. The governor must have the consent of the legislature for fiscal action.” That explains why Gary Johnson’s grade is not even higher in this report card.

3. Inactive
   James Of England

   @JamesOfEngland

   Post author

   9:17 PM EDT ⋅ May 22, 2016

   The override of his veto in 2003 would be an excellent excuse if the budgets he’d cheerfully signed had been better than 2003’s. In fact, 2003 saw a mere $405 million dollars of increase. Compare 2002, at $704 million; it wasn’t always this bad, but the biggest new spending program in 2003 was the “second Hollywood” program that he supported.

   You’re absolutely right that his personal friends at CATO will never stop issuing glowing words about him, but you’re wrong to believe that this is a matter of principle rather than personal friendship. Those all endorse the great lists of things he’d like to happen, but they aren’t things that ended up actually happening, tax cuts aside; New Mexico still doesn’t have school vouchers (although Martinez got it further through the legislature than Johnson did and it’s somewhat likely to pass next year, depending on how the election goes). It’s true that he cut taxes in some places, but he made them worse in others, leading to one of the worst gaps between favored industries that he gave tax breaks to and disfavored, a problem that Martinez has made one of her highest priorities to fix.

   When you cut taxes in ways that are not particularly targeted toward growth, though, and you hike up spending, you end up doing awful things to the debt, as happened with Johnson; for some reason the state debt doesn’t appear to feature in CATO’s analysis.

   If you ask the closest buddies of pretty much any governor, you’ll find that they rate him highly. That doesn’t make a record of more than doubling the debt a cheerful one. The corruption of the state tax code to favor those who supplied Johnson with glamor doesn’t become any more legitimate because CATO overlook it. The spending hikes were higher than in the average state throughout his two terms, and higher than the Federal increases, and the fact that CATO prefers his larger hikes to their smaller hikes is not an indictment of the math.