In 1979, voters approved a limit on how much money the state can spend each year — beyond how much is in its bank account. Proposition 4 created the state’s spending limit, sometimes called the “Gann Limit,” which says that if the state’s tax revenues increase too quickly for two consecutive years, the government has to either change tax rates, reduce spending or give taxpayers a rebate. The check-cutting isn’t triggered often, but it was the reason thousands of California families making as much as $75,000 a year got Golden State Stimulus checks in 2022 so that the state wouldn’t exceed the Gann Limit in 2020-21 and 2021-22 fiscal years.