Californians Want Limited Government, More Spending on Government Services

Though the central focus of this blog is on the prospects for tax reform in California this segment begins by looking at the strong support for apparently contradictory sets of beliefs: 1. a ‘limited government’ perspective that calls for smaller government and lower taxes, and views government as inefficient and government workers as overpaid; 2. support for increased spending on many government services or programs.

In the CSU Tax Reform Survey of 511 registered voters in California, 60% reported they paid too much in taxes, while 32% said they paid the right amount, and 5% said they paid too little. Yet when asked whether their state and local governments should be spending less, more, or the same on 11 different services, many more people favored increased spending than favored spending cuts on 10 of those 11 services. K-12 schools (64%), mental health services (61%), and public colleges and universities (57%) topped the list of services Californians want more spending on. The one exception to this pattern is that 47% want to spend less on prisons while only 18% want to spend more.

Table 1. “Should your state and local government be spending less, more, or the same on...”
	More	Less	Same
K-12 schools	64%	10%	23%
Mental health Services	61	8	25
Colleges and universities	57	14	25
Homes for seniors, disabled, veterans, and lower income families	56	9	28
Economic development projects	50	18	24
Building and repairing roads and highways	47	12	39
Police and fire services	42	9	45
Libraries	40	15	41
Building and repairing public transit	38	18	39
Parks and Recreation	36	17	36
Prisons and correctional institutions	18	47	29
N = 511 Note: Rows do not total 100% because some answered “don’t know” or declined to answer.

The concern about inadequate funding for education was also expressed in responses to a question asking if the quality of life in California is declining because we are not spending enough on education (Table 2). Two-thirds (67%) agreed with this statement while 27% disagreed with it. Yet 47% also reported that high state taxes were negatively impacting the quality of life in California, with 43% disagreeing with this statement.

Table 2. “The quality of life in California is declining because...”
	Strongly Agree	Agree	Neither agree nor disagree*	Disagree	Strongly Disagree
...we are not funding the services needed to build a strong future.	21.6%	40.7%	9.7%	20.4%	7.7%
...we are not funding education adequately.	30.6	36.0	6.2	20.0	7.3
...state taxes are too high.	18.8	28.6	11.0	36.0	5.7
N = 511 * Includes “don’t know” and refused

Researchers have long noted that support for funding particular government services often goes along with anti-tax and anti-government sentiments. Another way of saying this is that at the level of endorsing spending on specific programs most voters are liberal, but at the level of general views on government they are limited government conservatives. Some of this disconnect may be because many believe government is not spending taxes wisely and/or that government services are not as efficient and organized as private businesses which are subject to market discipline. Many also feel that a significant part of their taxes fund programs that undermine personal independence and discipline. Table 3 shows the strength of this general support for limited government among Californians.

Fully 71% agree with a statement that collecting more taxes grows government without resulting in better services. Only 21% disagree with this statement. This reflects a general distrust in the effectiveness of government that creates uphill sledding for anyone trying increase revenues or spending. Similarly, 57% think too much of our taxes go to “services for people who don’t want to work” while only 32% disagree with this.

Table 3. Support for Limited Government
	Strongly Agree	Agree	Neither agree nor disagree*	Disagree	Strongly Disagree
Too much of our taxes go to “services for people who don’t want to work.”	19.4%	37.1%	11.8%	25.4%	6.3%
“The more taxes they collect, government just gets bigger without providing better services”	30.7	40.6	7.3	17.9	3.5
We spend too much on “overpaid public employees.”	27.0	33.9	15.3	18.9	4.9
	“higher taxes & have more or higher quality services”		Neither (volunteered)	“less taxes & have fewer or lower quality services”
“I’d rather pay...	47.4%		29.2%	21.2%
N = 511 * Includes “don’t know” and refused

Note at the bottom of Table 3 that when California registered voters were asked to weigh taxes and services together 47% said they would choose higher taxes and more or higher quality services, while only 21% chose less taxes and fewer or lower quality services. But fully 29% said neither. Based on other surveys and how the ‘neither’ group answered other questions in this survey, many more would fit the less taxes, less services than would fit the more taxes, more services group. Our interviewers reported that most of those volunteering “neither” felt government should be able to do more with less, expressing the ‘government is inefficient’ viewpoint.

 A relatively small number of people expressing limited government views have consistent beliefs in small or limited government; many more holding limited government views want to spend more on particular government services. The extent of the contradiction between practical support for spending more on government services and general distrust and antagonism towards government and government spending is illustrated by looking at the spending wishes of those who support limited government. Table 4 looks at the spending choices of those who agree or strongly agree with limited government views, and compares them on spending for 3 government programs to those who disagree or strongly disagree with limited government views.

Table 4. “Should your state and local government spend less or more on ____”  by support for limited government.
	K-12 schools		Homes for seniors, disabled, veterans, and lower income families		Economic development projects that improve rundown neighborhoods
Agrees or Strongly Agrees that....	More	Less	More	Less	More	Less
Too much of our taxes go to “services for people who don’t want to work.” (N=289)	56.1%	13.8%	49.8%	11.8%	42.6%	23.9%
“The more taxes they collect, government just gets bigger without providing better services” (N=365)	59.2	13.4	52.3	11.2	44.1	24.1
Too much of our taxes go to “overpaid public employees.” (N=315)	57.8	15.3	51.7	11.1	43.2	22.2
Disagrees or Strongly Disagrees that...
Too much of our taxes go to “services for people who don’t want to work.” (N=162)	75.2%	5.0%	66.7%	4.9%	61.7%	12.3%
“The more taxes they collect, government just gets bigger without providing better services” (N=123)	77.1	2.8	69.4	2.8	63.6	6.4
Too much of our taxes go to “overpaid public employees.”  (N=108)	73.8	0.0	64.5	5.0	61.8	12.2
N = 511

 Table 4 shows real differences between those who agree and those who disagree with the limited government beliefs. Disagreeing with limited government adds roughly 15-20% to support for spending on different services. But what is most striking is that those who support limited government (in general) are much more likely to want to spend more than to spend less on specific government programs. Even for 'economic development projects to improve rundown neighborhoods', a program that for some evokes spending on poor people who should be helping themselves, the ratio is almost 2 to 1 for spending more over spending less among those with limited government beliefs. Even when looking at only those who strongly agree with the limited government beliefs (not shown) none of the 9 combinations in this 3 x 3 variable grouping had a ratio of spending below 1:1 of spending more v. spending less on the service.

Another way to illustrate this same point while summarizing all of the spending preferences (minus prisons[1]) is to code the spending answers this way: less = -1; same = 0; more = +1 and add them up for each participant. You end up with scores that range from -10 to +10, with the former being someone who wanted to spend less on all 10 programs/services and +10 wanting to spending more on all 10. Thus positive scores represent net “spenders” and negative scores net “cutters”. Table 5 reports the means spending/cutting scores for people with the different responses to the limited government questions and a couple of redistributive government questions (more on the latter shortly).

Table 5. “Mean Spending/Cutting Propensity Scores for Limited Government and Redistributive Government Views – N’s in parentheses
	Strongly Agree	Agree	Neither agree nor disagree*	Disagree	Strongly Disagree
Too much of our taxes go to “services for people who don’t want to work.”	1.60 (99)**	3.04 (190)	4.02 (59)	4.85 (130)	7.19 (32)
“The more taxes they collect, government just gets bigger without providing better services” (N=365)	2.01 (157)	3.69 (173)	4.23 (36)	5.41 (91)	6.05 (18)
Too much of our taxes go to “overpaid public employees.” (N=315)	1.97 (138)	3.50 (173)	4.12 (76)	5.05 (96)	6.12 (32)
“Wealthy Californians should pay more state taxes.”	5.64 (119)	4.94 (161)	3.76 (40)	1.71 (145)	-0.79 (44)
“Part of our taxes should go to making sure that everyone has an equal opportunity to have a good life.”	5.66 (109)	4.20 (214)	3.26 (86)	1.74 (72)	-2.98 (29)
N = 509 * Includes “don’t know” and refused ** N’s for each cell are in parentheses

Again we see that limited government views do really influence propensities to spend less or more of government services. For example, the difference between those who strongly disagree and those strongly agree that more taxes lead to bigger government, not better services is 4 points of the spending/cutting propensity scale. This means that on average the ‘strongly disagrees’ want to spend more or not spend less on 4 more programs/services than the ‘strongly agrees’.

We also see again, more comprehensively this time, that many people who want ‘limited government’ in general also want to increase government spending on particular programs. For example, those who strongly agree that more taxes do not lead to better services are still net spenders – on average they want to spend more on 2 more programs/services than they want to spend less on. The only exceptions to this are the relatively small number of people who strongly disagree that wealthy Californians should pay higher state taxes (N = 44) and those who strongly disagree that government should foster equal opportunity (N=29). On average, the former want to spend less on almost one more program than they want to spend more on and the latter want to spend less on nearly 3 programs than they want to spend more on.

I think the questions on wealthy Californians paying more taxes and government fostering equal opportunity (and possibly the question on ‘taxes support services for people who don’t want to work’) raise a somewhat different dimension than the limited government questions. I will call this dimension ‘redistributive government’. It is about whether or not people think that government should be about reducing economic inequality or supporting opportunities to get ahead for those with fewer family resources. The flip side of this is the view captured by the ‘services for those who don’t want to work’ question that many government programs foster dependency among the young and economically disadvantaged. This is an old perspective in the U.S. that is being forcefully articulately by influential people like Paul Ryan and organizations like Fox News.

So the resistance to spending on government services is not only related to support for limited government. It is also about antipathy towards government’s redistributive functions – government’s function of creating equal opportunity and mitigating the negative effects of economic inequality. In fact, more detailed regression analyses that weigh the relative influence of ‘limited government’ views and ‘redistributive government’ views, along with political party, political ideology, gender, age, education, race/ethnicity, and migration status in explaining the spending/cutting propensity scores found a couple of important things:

1.      Controlling for party, race, age, gender, ideology, etc. the limited government beliefs and the redistributive government beliefs are highly influential in predicting Californian’s spending/cutting propensities. In fact these two sets of beliefs were the most influential factors in explaining the spending/cutting propensities.  

2.      The influence of the redistributive government beliefs is stronger than the influence of the limited government beliefs.

The CSU Tax Reform Survey was conducted at California State University, East Bay from November 18, 2013 to February 9, 2014 with a break between December 22 and January 9.  Participants were selected randomly from a list of California registered voters prepared by Political Data Inc. Questions were asked in either English or Spanish. Results are weighted by gender, age, race, region, and country of birth to match population figures.

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[1] We left off prisons because most people want to spend less on prisons but for different that cross political differences.