OK, that’s bit more than the data actually say. But Goldy has a piece on a study of economic growth in the last decade.
According to a new report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), the economies of the nine states without a personal income tax (Washington included) have actually underperformed both the economies of the nine states with the highest income tax rates, and the 41 income tax states as a whole. Over the past decade real per capita GDP growth was only 5.2 percent in the non-income-tax states, compared 8.2 percent in the nine highest taxed states. Real median household income also fell further in the non-income-tax states, while unemployments were largely uniform across all three groups.
Washington actually did better than average on both per capita GDP and median income growth (while slightly worse on unemployment), but given the aggregate performance of the non-income-tax states it is impossible to argue that our lack of an income tax had anything to do with it. Unless you’re an idiot. Or a liar.
So yeah, 50 quite different states over a relatively short period of time is hardly the last word on what types of taxes make the most sense. But it certainly puts the lie to the notion that we’re getting ahead as a state because of our tax structure. If anything, it’s holding us back.
Let’s not have an income tax. I will not support a state income tax: we’ve got enough taxes already.
I would suggest that a state income tax (which can be deducted from your 1040, BTW) should replace the sales tax.
If you disregard the personal incomes of our state’s resident billionaires, the growth rate probably is zero.
Speaking of billionaires, Saudi Prince Alwaleed is having a cow because Forbes ranked him only #23 on its annual billionaires list. I guess it’s sort of understandable. Think of the damage that does to his social rank!
http://www.cnbc.com/id/100520915
Why the fuck anyone is dissatisfied with having only $20 billion is beyond my comprehension.
Ten states rank as having the most regressive overall tax systems. In these “Terrible Ten” states, the bottom 20 percent pay up to six times as much of their income in taxes as their wealthy counterparts. Washington State is the most regressive, followed by Florida, South Dakota, Illinois, Texas, Tennessee, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Alabama.
http://www.itep.org/pdf/whopaysreport.pdf
Fairness is, of course, in the eye of the beholder. Yet almost anyone would agree that the best-off families should pay at a tax rate at least equal to what low- and middle-income families pay
http://www.itep.org/pdf/whopaysreport.pdf
California’s highest income tax rate is 13.3%
I wonder what would happen if, say, the study Goldy cited was repeated, the states’ contributions to the calculation were weighted according population, and data not ending in 2011 but in 2012 were employed?
According to a 2012 University of Southern California study on state demographics, you have to go back to the early 1990s to find a time when more Americans were moving to California than leaving it for other states. Thanks to high housing prices and a weak job market, California is now a net exporter of U.S. citizens to other states.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/.....le/2522998
Anybody think things are better in high-tax California than they are in no-tax Washington state?
@8 I don’t see California aerospace workers quitting union jobs to move to South Carolina for the $14-an-hour nonunion Boeing jobs there … do you?
@ 9
You’re right, Roger Rabbit.
Unions are doing quite well in California:
Just 12.5% of the workforce was represented by unions nationwide in 2012, down from 13% the year before. But 18.4% of California’s workforce was represented by a union last year, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
http://www.latimes.com/busines.....5664.story
It’s the rest of the state that’s in the economic shitter. No coincidence, either.
What happened to the money from the tobacco lawsuit settlement?
# 10: “…It’s the rest of the state that’s in the economic shitter. No coincidence, either….”
While you are mangling cause-and-effect analysis, you might want to consider the impact of Prop. 13 and it’s progeney on state revenues.
@ 12
Since I grew up in CA and since one of my parents worked in the LA City Attorney’s office and bore the brunt of the Jarvis cuts, you can safely assume I’m aware of Prop 13’s impacts.
Here’s the thing: If revenues have been affected (it was late 70s, I think, that Prop 13 went into effect, so we’re coming up on, like 35 years now) then spending needs to reflect that. If unions elect Dems who give candy to unions who re-elect Dems, and the limitations of revenues are ignored, and that pattern is repeated for decades, eventually things will end up in the shitter.
Prop 13 did limit real estate tax revenues. It’s why all those increases in sales taxes and income taxes, not to mention all of the other fees imposed by governments in California, occurred subsequent to Prop 13. The state made up the revenue shortfall in other ways, and still found itself in the shitter.
So, what is your point, exactly?
Oh. Progeny, not progeney, rhp. Your record remains intact.
serial @8
Most all of the progressive taxes in CA were cut. Increasing inequity. So people voted with their feet.
Duh.
What else would you expect to happen?