Art Laffer and Stephen Moore write in the Wall Street Journal, 4/21/12, A 50-State Tax Lesson for the President.
Excerpts:
Over the past decade, states without an income tax have seen 58% higher population growth than the national average, and more than double the growth of states with the highest income tax rates. Such interstate migration left Texas with four new congressional seats this year and spanked New York and Ohio with a loss of two seats each.
The transfer of economic power and political influence from high-tax states toward low-tax, right-to-work ones is one of America’s most momentous demographic changes in decades. Liberal utopias are losing the race for capital. The rich, the middle-class, the ambitious and others are leaving workers’ paradises such as Hartford, Buffalo and Providence for Jacksonville, San Antonio and Knoxville.
Illinois, Oregon and California are state practitioners of Obamanomics. All have passed soak-the-rich laws like the Buffett Rule (plus economically harmful regulations, like California’s cap-and-trade scheme), and all face big deficits because their economies continue to sink. Illinois has lost one resident every 10 minutes since hiking tax rates in January. California has 10.9% unemployment, having lost 4.8% of its jobs over the past decade.
HKO comments:
It seems so obvious. How many times does this lesson need to be learned? America is a mobile society and one that is filled with choices. Irresponsible governments are easy to leave. This is true with cities and states, and it is true with countries. Even if one does not leave a location they can deploy their capital to more friendly sites and they can adjust their own financial and personal lives to avoid higher taxes.
Further in the same edition of the WSJ (same page of the hard copy), The Great California Exodus, by Joel Kotkin:
Excerpt:
Mr. Kotkin also notes that demographic changes are playing a role. As progressive policies drive out moderate and conservative members of the middle class, California’s politics become even more left-wing. It’s a classic case of natural selection, and increasingly the only ones fit to survive in California are the very rich and those who rely on government spending. In a nutshell, “the state is run for the very rich, the very poor, and the public employees.”
Take Salt Lake City. “Almost all of the major tech companies have moved stuff to Salt Lake City.” That includes Twitter, Adobe, eBay and Oracle.
Then there’s Texas, which is on a mission to steal California’s tech hegemony. Apple just announced that it’s building a $304 million campus and adding 3,600 jobs in Austin. Facebook established operations there last year, and eBay plans to add 1,000 new jobs there too.
Meanwhile, taxes are harming the private economy. According to the Tax Foundation, California has the 48th-worst business tax climate. Its income tax is steeply progressive. Millionaires pay a top rate of 10.3%, the third-highest in the country. But middle-class workers—those who earn more than $48,000—pay a top rate of 9.3%, which is higher than what millionaires pay in 47 states.
HKO further comment:
The last line above is striking. If you think you can build a worker’s paradise on the backs of the rich, it is likely the middle class that will get shafted.
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