Gary Johnson's record

[hrdman2luv]

I just found this. And am wondering if any or all of it's true? Anyone got any explanations?

Gary Johnson's ACTUAL Fiscal Record

The piece sent "over the transom" taking a shot at Governor Johnson's possible motives for running as a Libertarian contains some interesting theories.

However, it also contains some disturbing claimed facts, and one thing I did do before publishing that piece was check them.

Unfortunately the facts cited are correct and Gary is being less-than-honest.

This is what his campaign web site claims on his record:

Left office with New Mexico as one of the only four states in the country with a balanced budget
Left New Mexico with a budget surplus
Used Line Item Veto thousands of times to trim the budget
Vetoed 750 bills during his time in office; more than all other governors combined
Cut over 1,200 government jobs without firing anyone
Created more than 20,000 new jobs
First New Mexico Governor to challenge education status quo and propose statewide voucher program
Restored State General Fund reserves to more than $222 million from a low of $28.1 million
Limited annual state budget growth to 5.0% during eight years in office
Cut taxes 14 times while never raising them—a first for New Mexico
Vetoed 32% of the total number of bills submitted for his signature

This all sounds good, right?

Well, no. Yes, the budget rose 5% per year during his time in office. Unfortunately that's a roughly 50% increase in the size of the State Government during those eight years.

That might be ok if the rate of increase was less than the rate of inflation. So let's check the rate of inflation and see if Governor Johnson was telling the truth or if he's being less-than-honest with the public.

In 1995 the CPI index stood at 150.3. In 2003 when Johnson left office it stood at 181.7. That's a 20.9% increase over the same eight years.

In other words Gary Johnson increased spending in New Mexico at approximately 240% the rate of inflation -- or about double and a half as fast as prices rose.

Do you define that as "fiscally conservative" or "responsible"? I do not. Further, can you find any part of spending in this chart that he actually cut during his time in office or did every single one of these bars get bigger?

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart_1995_2003NMb_13s1li111mcn_F0s00s10s20s

Then there's the claim of a "balanced budget". That's a nice claim. Unfortunately it was achieved by lying, just as it has been in the other states, because the amount of debt the State Government had outstanding nearly doubled during those very same years.

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart_1995_2003NMb_13s1li111mcn_H0t

That's a gross $3.88 billion increase in debt during those years. The population of the state was (as of 2003) 1.87 million, so Governor Johnson added over $2,000 in debt to the financial responsibility of every man, woman and child in New Mexico during his administration.

Is that "fiscally conservative"?

Ron Paul has often been called "Dr. No" for his refusal to accede to more spending and bigger deficits. While he's one man in Congress, you can rarely if ever find a bill that he has approved which increases spending and public debt.

Gary Johnson, on the other hand, was the man with the pen who signed the spending bills in the end analysis. He is the one who was responsible for approval of the budget and the actual spending and borrowing profile of the State. And he has repeatedly claimed, and claims today, a huge number of vetoes.

It's true that Governor Johnson vetoed a huge number of bills. But the implication he wishes you to believe, that he shrunk the size of government in New Mexico and thus that he also shrunk residents' responsibility, both directly in current government spending and in the debt that was left for both residents who voted for various policies and the children and unborn unable to vote for or against those policies is simply false.

Governor, you have some explaining to do if you expect me to support or vote for you, as I believe you have actively and intentionally misled not only myself personally but the Libertarian Party in general on the actual facts when it comes to your spending and debt record as Governor.

Nobody should vote for this man believing he will cut their debt load or actually shrink one single line item in the Federal Budget, as his history shows that over eight years as Governor of a small state he saddled every single resident with $2,000 worth of additional debt and in fact added to State Spending in all of the categories he claims he will "control" or "cut" including pensions, health care and education.

And that, my friends, is a fact.

Ps: Before someone pipes up and tries to claim that population increases were responsible for this, the population of New Mexico in 1995 was ~1.7 million. In 2003 it was 1.9 million, or 12% higher, an approximately 1.4% annual expansion. It is thus immaterial to the expansion of the State budget and debt, and one cannot lay off these expansions on "growing population"; any such attempted claim is a futher lie.

Here's the link.

 

[hrdman2luv]

23 views and no replies?

 

[Ariondys]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Johnson#Legacy

...left the state with a large budget surplus.."[36]

"arguably the most popular governor of the decade . . . leaving the state with a $1 billion budget surplus."[37]

when Johnson left office, "the size of state government had been substantially reduced and New Mexico was enjoying a large budget surplus."[25]

He credits his heavy veto pen for eliminating New Mexico's budget deficit and cutting the growth rate of New Mexico's government in half."[38]


debt vs deficit.
size vs growth rate (of government)

perhaps [25] meant growth rate rather than size.

it seems unanimous however that Gov Johnson didn't have a deficit. He had a surplus. That leads to lower taxes and no debt.

 

[Smart3]

Gary Johnson is still way better than Obamney.

 

[hrdman2luv]

Gary Johnson is still way better than Obamney.

I agree. 200%

 

[Nathan Hale]

The reason you're probably not seeing much debate on this is because it's just like any other background analysis - there are two stories. As the old saying goes, "there are lies, damn lies, and statistics". We see it in every campaign - the candidates bicker over how awesome/horrible each other's tenure in prior office was - and both parties have such amazing statistics to back up their points.

It all comes down to what you believe and what you interpret from the data.

 

[hrdman2luv]

I must say, I've bought into the good things about Johnson, mainly because I know I'm not going to vote for Romney or Obama. I've seen their records and can't support them for their records. I don't have to worry about Johnson's record. Even though I'm voting for him, there aren't enough people to vote for him to worry about him actually becoming president.

 

[fr33]

This will be the first time in my life that I vote for a pro choice candidate and I do not like it.

 

[Nathan Hale]

I wouldn't write him off entirely. If we can get him up to 15% in the polls we can get him into the debates, and that changes the game entirely. Big "if".

 

[Meatwasp]

It just goes to show. You can't trust any of them. Ron Paul is the only diamond in the coal bin.

 

[Nathan Hale]

I trust Gary. He's a good guy.

 

[Carehn]

It just goes to show. You can't trust any of them. Ron Paul is the only diamond in the coal bin.

No he's not. He was just the biggest. Many oh diamonds in this here coal bin.

 

[Jumbo Shrimp]

This is a great post:

He does indeed put forth that image. He is blatantly lying when he puts it forth.

Politicians lie. Politicians stink. Every governor running for President this year had during their tenure as governor:

Taxes go up.
Spending go up.
Debt go up.

They just lie about it and count on people not researching the facts for themselves. It's generally a smart bet. Americans are extremely comfortable being lied to. So they lie, lie, lie, lie, lie.

No, he did not. It is important to realize this. qh4dotcom's statement above is not true. It is false.

• New Mexico's state government's spending went way up while Johnson was governor, from 4.4 billion annually to 7.7 billion annually. (see here)
  
  
• New Mexico's state government's taxes went way up while Johnson was governor. Total direct revenue increased from 5.3 billion to 6.6 billion (see here) . Or, according to a different measurement from a different site, tax revenue increased from 2.7 billion to 3.5 billion. (see here)
  
  
• New Mexico's state government's debt went way up while Johnson was governor. In fact, it tripled: from 1.82 billion to 4.6 billion. (see here)

More spending. More taxes. More debt.

So, there's his record. But, but, but, you say! But, he really shares our vision of liberty at heart, he just did a lousy job actually implementing it as governor. Well, here's his farewell State of the State Address, in which he explains to New Mexico the things which were important to him, the accomplishments of which he is most proud. Virtually all of which are various programs he has increased. Various spending he has increased. Various pork barrels, in other words, that he's rolled out for leviathan and its grateful parasites.

Here it is: http://www.stateline.org/live/details/speech?contentId=16108

So not only does he not walk the walk (which is what's important to me), he does not even talk the talk (in case that's what's important to any of you).

~~~

Another note: But, but, but, you say! But, this was the legislature's fault! Mr. Johnson was vetoing, vetoing, vetoing, as much as he could, but they were overriding him. It would have been tons worse if not for him.

Truth will contradict this theory. Mr. Johnson did veto many bills, but clearly not nearly enough. He did not veto appropriations bills. Those would have been the important ones to veto! He did not veto all the outrageous growth in the state government that was occurring during his tenure. In fact, as you can see from his address above, he took pride in much of this growth. He could have vetoed the cancerous growth. The debt. The taxes. The waste. He could have stopped it. But, either he had no desire to do so (this is what I think is the truth), or, the most charitable possibility is that he had the desire, but lacked the courage to do it.

What's more, New Mexico has the line item veto. Not only could he have vetoed budget bills outright, he could have crossed out billions of dollars of spending, line by line. Did he? No. His line item vetoing was weak, weak, weak. Paltry. Inconsequential. 27 million out of multi-billion dollar budgets.

Weak.

Fake.

 

[Nathan Hale]

This is a great post:

But these boards (and others) have been over that post and posts like it. There is a rebuttal and a surrebuttal to all the data we can glean from Gary's time in office. It's all about who you trust.

 

[fr33]

Gary's good for a protest vote. I worry that he and Jesse Ventura will run in the future and split us up.

I support Rand. His record is far superior to either of these clowns if you are a libertarian/free market type of person.

 

[Nathan Hale]

Gary's good for a protest vote. I worry that he and Jesse Ventura will run in the future and split us up.

If Ventura and Johnson are on the ballot in 2016 it will likely be on the same ticket - Ventura is campaigning for Johnson this time around.

I support Rand. His record is far superior to either of these clowns if you are a libertarian/free market type of person.

By "clowns" are you referring to Obama/Romney or Johnson/Ventura?

 

[torchbearer]

This will be the first time in my life that I vote for a pro choice candidate and I do not like it.

rest assure gary has a better chance of winning to lottery than winning the presidency.
even if he won enough states- by some weird fluke, the position would be denied him and the true face of our government would be revealed. in the same way the GOP was forced to reveal itself this year when we threatened their power positions.

 

[Nathan Hale]

rest assure gary has a better chance of winning to lottery than winning the presidency.
even if he won enough states- by some weird fluke, the position would be denied him and the true face of our government would be revealed. in the same way the GOP was forced to reveal itself this year when we threatened their power positions.

Then let's work to make that the result, if that is the way things are.

 

[Jumbo Shrimp]

No way I'd vote for this asshat. I'm voting Virgil Goode.

 

[69360]

I'm so tired of people nitpicking GJ and comparing him to RP. The RP campaign is over and GJ is the closest person to RP on the ballot.