This article on Yahoo Finance is hardly a surprise, but it is worth a mention here. The article lists the ten states with the highest tax burdens and the ten states with the lowest tax burdens. The highest tax states are predictable – if you follow this stuff at all, you’ll get at least 7 out of 10 correct.
In the order of bad to worse: Pennsylvania, Maine, Vermont, Minnesota, California, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey. See any geographical uniformities here? Such as the liberal, Yankee northeast and the east coast, with a sprinkling of very leftish midwestern states? The 10 least criminal states are also not a surprise. Here’s the order from lower taxes to lowest: New Mexico, Louisiana, South Carolina, New Hampshire, Texas, Wyoming, Tennessee, South Dakota, Nevada, Alaska. The lone Yankee state is not really Yankee by heritage – it has become the Free State. Most of these states rank among those states with the highest rate of population growth in recent years.
So yes, not only do people go to live in places where they can keep more of their money, but, more importantly, businesses gravitate to low-cost, low-tax, less bureaucratic states, and with that goes a whole host of intellectual capital looking for good jobs and more money they can keep.
Of course, there are many factors that go into the beggar/donor state dynamic. Population for one. Donor states tend to have higher population densities, more high income earners and big corporate tax bases due to large business centers being located in those states.
Agreed. And those richer states subsidize the beggar states, which the right-wingers who live there would hate to admit is…. w-e-l-f-a-r-e. Yes, they like their welfare. How those folks pretend to be proud fiscal conservatives, while they mooch off the rest, is not quite clear to me.
But, to be fair, they can't control the fact that their states get disproportionate welfare any more than I can control the fact that my state subsidizes them. So, I do not hold any of the individuals personally accountable. But it is sort of paradoxical for people in the beggar states to carry on some persona as being self-sufficient, rugged survivors when the truth is they are clinging on to the umbilical cords of the rich states.
Not that any of that really matters. It is complicated. To soothe the beggars' egos, I guess we could call it "investment." There is that side to it.
You are absolutely right on the paradox. I see it all the time here in Kentucky. I call 'em on it too.
Here's a color coded version of the map of donor vs. beggar states to make the geography easier to see.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/11/15/73577/-M…
But… take a look at the states listed in the blog and see which ones dine the most at the federal trough. It sort of changes the picture a little bit. http://www.taxfoundation.org/UserFiles/Image/Blog…
I live in a state with low taxes and the cost of living is significantly lower here. People complain that wages are less but so is everything else.