State TANF Spending: Predictors of State Tax Effort to Support Welfare Reform

State spending on Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) greatly varies. Combined federal and state spending by the states per TANF family or recipient reflects the historic level of state generosity for Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), the failure of the federal government to set any minimum spending standard for the states, and the failure of the federal government to adjust federal grants for huge changes in state TANF caseloads. Our multivariate analysis shows that state spending for TANF is greatly influenced by the percentage of the state population that is black, the percentage of the state population that is on TANF (especially if a significant percentage of the rolls consist of black recipients), and the economic conditions within the state. Some states spend as much as their economies will allow, while other states spend far below capacity. Despite the very different goals of TANF, state spending is still heavily influenced by their historic approach to AFDC.     

From Fistfights to Firefights: Trait Aggression and Support for State Violence

Aggression is a fundamental component of human behavior, yet is mostly absent from scholarship on mass political behavior. This study proposes and tests a theory of state violence attitudes in which citizens develop preferences from aggressive personality traits. In an original nationally-representative survey, trait aggression strongly predicts support for violent state policies, as does its subcomponent trait anger, rivaling the power of partisanship. More provocatively, the well-documented gender gap in state violence attitudes replicated here is not attributable to sex differences in aggressive personality. This work builds on recent advances in political personality research and highlights the important role of aggression in political behavior.     

State Tax and Expenditure Limitations: There is No Story

Out of the troubled economic atmosphere of the late 1970's grew a discontent with government in general and taxation in particular. The tax revolt took hold at the local level and placed limits on the growth of the property tax through celebrated citizen initiatives like Proposition 13 in California. At the national level, uneasiness with the role of government and a sense that taxation was too high culminated in 1980 with the election of Ronald Reagan. The electorate embraced promises of less government and lower taxes. For states, the tax revolt resulted in a number of state tax and expenditures limitations (TELS). Most had several things in common: they were adopted before 1983, they addressed state appropriations, and they were largely a western phenomenon spreading from California. The overall condition of state economies and structure of state tax systems, in combination with the sensitivity of policymakers to anti-tax sentiment, have done more to limit state spending than have imposed restrictions.     

Metropolitan Governance: Voter Support and State Legislative Prospects

With increased public attention to the problems in both centralcities and suburban areas, the feasibility of metropolitan governanceis being considered again. Myron Orfield's work on regionalcooperation in Minneapolis-St. Paul has suggested that statelegislative action can be used to achieve that outcome. However,state legislators are unlikely to promote regional policiesunless they have some evidence their constituents support them.This article uses election data from California propositionsto test the connection that Orfield asserts between demographiccomposition of an area and voter support for regional issues.The data suggest several shortcomings of his model, includingthat race or ethnicity and the diversity of an area substantiallyaffect the outcome in ways he did not consider.     

Constitutional Dimensions of State and Local Tax Deductibility

President Reagan's proposal to eliminate the deduction of stateand local taxes for the purpose of assessing federal incometaxes will vastly enlarge the scope of the federal government,unduly burden state and local governments, and greatly harmthe federal system. The essence of the federal idea is thatthere are arenas of government that must not be invaded by othergovernments. Yet the Treasury Department would have us believethat the most fundamental activities of state and local governmentsare in some significant sense paid for by the federal governmentthrough "subsidies" provided by the federal tax code.     

Tax and Expenditure Limitations and State and Local Fiscal Structure: An Empirical Assessment

The tax and expenditure limitation (TEL) "movement" of the 1970s and 1980s can be characterized in part as a struggle between local autonomy and state control. Undeniable shifts have occurred over the same period in state and local revenue systems and functional responsibilities. This article places these shifts within the context of this movement, using pooled, cross-sectional, time-series techniques for the period between 1970 and 1990, in an effort to assess its impacts. Findings suggest that TELs have resulted in increased centralization, lessened local responsiveness, increased use of local non-tax sources of revenue, and a sector less accommodating to the needs of dependent populations. TELs may have also had dubious effects on both the allocative efficiency and equity of the state and local public sector.     

State Government Expenditure Determinants and Tax Revenue Determinants Revisited

The primary aim of the research was to test the general hypothesis that many institutional and political variables affect fiscal outcomes; that the preferences of public officials, and the decision processes used to act on those preferences, matter. State government data (state only, not state and local) from 1980, 1985, and 1990 were used to specify state tax revenue and expenditure models. A previous (Merrifield, 1991) state tax revenue model identified many significant institutional and political variables, but it was based only on 1985 data (49 observations). The larger data set (147 observations), including better data for some of the variables, indicated that most of Merrifield's (1991) findings are robust. The state expenditure models facilitated a second test of the general institutional and political variable hypothesis, as well as the hypotheses about specific variables. The expenditure model also facilitated comparisons of expenditure and tax determinants, and comparisons with results published in the literature. Though there are some noteworthy differences between the expenditure and tax models, the expenditure models also supported many of the institutional and political variable hypotheses.     

State Tax Cuts of 1995: Is Something New Afoot?

Perhaps the hottest fiscal topic in state capitals in 1995 was tax cuts. When legislatures convened in January, it appeared possible that states were on the verge of an unprecedented wave of tax cuts. The Republican landslide of November 1994 swept into office many new governors and legislators who had campaigned on reducing taxes. Governor Christine Todd Whitman of New Jersey was considered a role model by many of them. Perhaps state tax policy was about to take a major new direction. According to some reports, that is precisely what happened. For example, Stephen Moore, Director of Fiscal Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, wrote the following introduction to his overview of state tax policies:1 1995 is shaping up to be the biggest tax-cutting year in more than 10 years…. [T]he supply side philosophy that low tax rates and expenditure controls are the key fiscal tools to state economic competitiveness now appears to be the new governing philosophy in state capitals from Albany to Sacramento. The Pete Wilson, Lowell Weicker, Jim Florio soak-the-rich philosophy of the early 1990s has been nearly universally repudiated across the states. Meanwhile, “Whitmanomics,” named after tax-cutting Christine Todd Whitman of New Jersey, is spreading rapidly to other states. In fact, there was a wave of state tax cuts in 1995 with about half of the states enacting reductions of some kind. But it appears premature to draw the strong conclusion that this marked a radical change in state fiscal policy. State legislatures trimmed or rejected most of the proposals for large tax cuts. Most of the 1995 tax cuts were small or modest in size Rather than a new departure, they are consistent with past policies at similar points in the business cycle. It is also possible, however, that something new really is afoot. Conservative anti-tax forces are gaining strength in the states, just as they are at the federal level. If it were not for prospective federal aid cuts, state tax policy really might become more conservative. But the shift of federal responsibilities to states will represent a formidable obstacle to large state tax cuts in the coming years. This article places the tax cuts of 1995 in perspective. It begins with a detailed discussion of ambiguities'in defining and measuring tax reductions and increases. This discussion can be applied to any time period and will remain relevant after concern     

高等教育的新理念:全人教育

本文针对我国高等教育存在的严重的科学主义倾向,以至形成所谓的“半个人”或者“单面人”教育的现象,提出应树立全人教育的理念,认为应通过传授“整全的知识”以形成“健全的人格”,不仅使学生懂得“何以为生”,更重要的是使学生知道“为何而生”,成为德业双收、人格完善的人才。     

Mobilizing Interest: The Effects of Money on Citizen Participation in State Supreme Court Elections

In this article, we investigate one highly significant aspect of the role of money in judicial elections: whether campaign spending increases citizen participation in the recruitment and retention of judges. Specifically, by using a two-stage modeling strategy that allows us to separate the effects of challengers from the effects of money, we assess whether relatively expensive campaigns improve the chances that citizens will vote in the 260 supreme court elections held from 1990 through 2004 in 18 states using partisan or nonpartisan elections to staff the high court bench. We find that increased spending significantly improves citizen participation in these races. Whether measured as the overall spending in each election or in per capita terms, greater spending facilitates voting. We conclude, contrary to conventional wisdom about the deleterious effects of money in judicial elections, that by stimulating mass participation and giving voters greater ownership in the outcomes of these races, expensive campaigns strengthen the critical linkage between citizens and the bench and enhance the quality of democracy.     

Branding and Isomorphism: The Case of Higher Education

Since the New Public Management movement began, public and nonprofit organizations have been adopting and adapting businesslike practices, including branding and marketing. There remains a knowledge gap in understanding why organizational actors choose to allocate resources to adopt branding and marketing policies. This article explores organizational branding initiatives within the context of research extensive (N = 109) higher education institutions in the United States from 2006 to 2013. Seventy‐two universities (66 percent) have introduced branding initiatives since 2006. Findings suggest that the publicness of organizations influences branding and marketing isomorphism in nuanced ways and that organizations are more likely to adopt new branding initiatives to promote higher general performance. Organizations adopt branding strategies in response to national trends and efforts to capitalize on their own strong performance rather than mimicking stronger‐performing peers.     

The Georgia Lottery and State Appropriations for Education: Substitution or Additional Funding?

This article examines the use of lottery proceeds for funding public education in Georgia, with specific focus on the state's effort to guard against fungibility of lottery proceeds. The Georgia lottery earmarks proceeds for education and Georgia is among the states requiring a high level of transparency at each stage of the budget and appropriations process. Based upon comparisons of spending before and after the lottery was put in place, we conclude that lottery spending has not been completely offset by substitution. Lottery funds appear to have stimulated additional spending in the target areas. Budget fungibility has been constrained by the transparency of the budget and appropriations process, gubernatorial commitment to supplement not supplant, the policy architecture of the lottery–for–education program, and a relatively strong state economy that renders substitution unnecessary.     

The Impact of Tax Revenue from Capital Gains Realizations on State Income Tax Revenue and Budget Conditions

We explore the effect of the rapid increase in capital gains realizations on state income tax revenue during the 1990s and 2000s, and the effect that this had on state fiscal decisions regarding the use of these revenue. We find wide variation in the growth of capital gains realizations across states and that the growth in capital gains had a significant effect on state income tax revenue for many states. We find that states used a sizable portion of the additional revenue from capital gains to fund reserves in the year the revenue was generated, and that capital gains revenue lead to some reductions in taxes but not to increases in expenditures. The evidence suggests that states were conservative in their use of capital gains related revenues.     

State Reform in Education Finance: Territorial and Social Strategies

As of January 1991, state education finance systems had beenoverturned by the courts in twelve states and upheld by thecourts in another fourteen. This article examines the ways inwhich states have responded to the challenge of equity in schoolfinance. Equity reforms are rooted in two kinds of inequitiesin public elementary and secondary education. First, state governmentscan address interdistrict or territorial inequity that is dueto the disparity in local taxable wealth. Second, state governmentscan address the social inequity that arises from the presenceof special-needs populations within a district. A reform strategyis likely to reflect a state's relative emphases on territorialand social inequities. The common tendency, however, is to focuson territorial equity. These policy tendencies are shaped byvarious state political and institutional factors.