Freedom Line Blog

The Cato Institute came out this week with its Fiscal Policy Report Card on America’s Governors and the results are very good for Tea Partiers. The nation’s top five chief executives in terms of fiscal stewardship are virtually all proud limited government advocates who have followed through on their promises of reining in government:

1 (tie) — Sam Brownback (R-Kansas); Rick Scott (R-Florida)

3 (tie) — Paul LePage (R-Maine); Tom Corbett (R-Pennsylvania)

5 (3-way tie) — Bobby Jindal (R-Louisiana); Jack Dalrymple (R-North Dakota); John Lynch (D-New Hampshire)

Lynch deserves some credit for being the sole Democrat to crack the top of the list, but not nearly as much as the Republicans who swept to huge majorities in the Granite State’s legislature and forced the governor to abide by New Hampshire’s “live free or die” ethos.

And the nation’s worst fiscal leaders? Is it any surprise that it’s a cadre of blue state liberals?:

46. Christine Gregoire (D-Washington)

47. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii)

48. Mark Dayton (D-Minnesota)

49. Dan Malloy (D-Connecticut)

50, Pat Quinn (D-Illinois)

The full report is here.

God bless New Hampshire, an outpost of sanity in otherwise deep-blue New England. In keeping with the Granite State’s strongly libertarian political culture, New Hampshire’s legislative Republicans led a charge to prevent the state from implementing a health insurance exchange program under Obamacare. The result: the state’s Democratic governor buckled. From the state’s free-market think tank, the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy:

Governor John Lynch this morning signed legislation blocking implementation of a health insurance exchange in New Hampshire. The Obama Administration has been urging states to set up exchanges under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, known as ObamaCare.

Lynch has supported setting up a New Hampshire exchange, including the proposal in his State of the State address in February. Senate legislation setting up an exchange, SB 163, won Committee approval in January before stalling on the Senate floor. Opponents argued that a state-run exchange would put New Hampshire taxpayers on the hook for the costs of administering much of the federal health care law, while giving the state little flexibility from federal mandates.

New Hampshire’s state motto — perhaps the nation’s most iconic — is “Live Free or Die.” It’s nice to know that those are more than just words on a license plate.

h/t: Adam Freedman at Ricochet