10-14-2019, 11:12 AM
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/rep...vernment/.
Quote:Not posting the entire article as it has graphs and data plots; worth the jump. Here's the teaser:
Five states will hold elections this November for governor or state legislature — and a lot seems to be on the line. In the Louisiana gubernatorial race, a Republican victory would mean total GOP control of the state government; similarly, in Virginia, Democrats could take total control with just a few more legislative victories.
And which party wins could have big consequences for state policy. Take the Kentucky gubernatorial race as an example. There, Andy Beshear, the Democratic nominee, has claimed that if Republican Gov. Matt Bevin wins reelection, his cuts to the education budget will be so drastic that some of the last remaining schools in rural communities across the state will close. At the same time, Bevin has argued that Beshear holds radical views on health care — like opposing a work requirement for some Medicaid recipients — and that if Beshear is elected, he’ll continue to support the “government takeover of health care.”
But how high are the stakes exactly? Based on the campaign rhetoric, you might expect state spending to be fundamentally transformed by whichever party is in control. The real-world effects, however, are more limited.
One way we can answer this question is to look at what’s happened in state governments over the last 30 years, as Republicans have been on quite an electoral run. The GOP went from full control in only three state governments in 1992 to 26 in 2018. Democrats have had full control of some state governments during this time period too — including some gains in the midterm elections last year — but their control has been nowhere as extensive as the GOP’s. Government at the state level is seen as a story of conservative success; Republicans gained ground nationwide in elections and built networks of advocacy groups, associations and think tanks — all while becoming increasingly conservative.
But in my new book, “Red State Blues: How the Conservative Revolution Stalled in the States,” I argue that states controlled by Republicans haven’t shifted the size of government as much as one might have expected. In reviewing the programs that were (and were not) implemented, I found that policy either continued to move to the left or it stabilized, rather than moving in a more conservative direction.
One simple indicator I looked at is state expenditures. Despite Republican gains at the state level, states have still been spending a lot more money over time. Even as more Republicans took control since the 1990s, median spending by states doubled (adjusted for inflation).