GOOD GOVERNMENT IN COLORADO
George Will's latest column is a good overview of the success of Colorado's fiscal management and of Governor Bill Owens, a smart, articulate Republican with libertarian leanings. Read the whole thing (it's just an op-ed column).
Owens offered Arnold Schwarzenegger advice in a WSJ op-ed (subscription required):
In his campaign for California governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger repeatedly said enacting a constitutional cap on state spending would be at the top of his agenda. Now it's time to fulfill that promise. Mr. Schwarzenegger should use his surprisingly strong mandate to push a Taxpayer Bill of Rights (Tabor) through the state legislature at the earliest possible date. As a governor who has benefited from a decade-old Tabor spending cap in Colorado, my message to Gov.-elect Schwarzenegger is simple: Go for it.
There is no better way to tackle California's Herculean budget challenges and put the state on a stronger fiscal footing than to tie the growth in the state budget to the annual growth in inflation and population, as we have done in Colorado.
For more than a decade, we have coupled our spending cap on all levels of government with a requirement that excess revenues be returned to taxpayers -- and taxes cannot be increased without voter approval. The result is the public sector cannot grow at a rate faster than the private sector -- unless voters say so.