Is your governor a strong fiscal conservative or a big-spending socialist? A new ranking of America’s governors from the right-leaning American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) offers us some answers.
All-star conservative economists including Art Laffer and Stephen Moore worked with the organization to evaluate the track record of all 50 governors. They examined their state’s economic performance, executive policies, and tax-and-spending policies.
As we already covered on BASEDPolitics, the five most fiscally conservative governors in America were South Dakota’s Kirsti Noem, Utah’s Spencer Cox, Florida’s Ron DeSantis, Colorado’s Jared Polis, and Idaho’s Brad Little. But what about the opposite extreme?
Well, according to these new rankings, these are the 5 biggest-spending, most socialist governors in America.
1. Michelle Lujan Grisham
The Democratic governor of New Mexico, Grisham comes in dead last in the ranking. She was in the bottom five for executive policy, economic performance, and fiscal policy—a truly impressive level of underachievement.
2. Daniel McKee
The Democratic governor of Rhode Island, McKee has led the nation’s smallest state to some of the nation’s worst outcomes and policies. The state’s economic performance wasn’t that terrible, it ranked 41st. Yet it had the worst executive policies of all 50 states and the second-worst tax-and-spending policies.
3. Gavin Newsom
The Democratic governor of California, Newsom has become a national villain after exploiting his “emergency powers” to expand the Golden State’s government to new levels of intrusion all while breaking the rules in his personal life. His poor rankings for executive policy and fiscal policy may explain why California is losing population like crazy.
4. J.B. Pritzker
The Democratic governor of Illinois, Pritzker’s state fared woefully in economic performance, coming in at 48th place. However, his executive policies weren’t that authoritarian, at 36th. Yet the overall record of the state was dragged down by the governor’s dismal fiscal policy ranking, which came in at 47th.
5. Andrew Cuomo
The (former) Democratic governor of New York, Cuomo was forced to resign in disgrace after facing sexual harassment allegations and a massive scandal over bad policies that led to nursing home deaths—plus an attempt to cover it all up.
All the while under his tenure, the state suffered poor economic performance and he enacted big-spending fiscal policies alongside sweeping, invasive executive orders. Is it any wonder so many people are fleeing New York?
The Takeaway
Luckily, Americans do have recourse when their state officials enact failed big-government policies that ruin the economy. They can vote with their feet, and in recent years millions of Americans are doing just that. As long as some states double down on these terrible ideas, they’ll keep losing population to places like Florida that take a markedly different approach.
There’s also an undeniable partisan trend here.
While one Democrat, Jared Polis, did make it into the five best governors ranking, he’s the exception, not the rule. It’s not a coincidence that all five of the most fiscally reckless and socialist governors in America are Democrats.
Republicans definitely don’t always practice what they preach about fiscal responsibility—especially in Congress—but we do see a significant difference in policies enacted when the GOP controls the governor’s mansion. This new ranking makes this reality impossible to ignore.
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