This report documents the recent course of events in government spending, taxing, and employment at all three levels of government. It also speculates on the nature and causes of fiscal containment in its myriad forms. The report devotes one chapter to a case study of city budgets in Los Angeles during the five years of rapid growth immediately preceding the passage of Proposition 13. Finally, it investigates the history and current status of the fiscal limitation movement. The report concludes that (1) the current American tax revolt is merely the latest in a historical series, (2) Proposition 13 represents only one form of fiscal limitation, (3) evidence exists that current fiscal limitation measures, though generally slowing the rate of government growth, have not had as great an effect as their supporters had hoped, and (4) fiscal limitation statutes and constitutional amendments are but one of many causes of the restrained growth of state and local government that has occurred over the last five years. (Author)