Posted on 04/13/2015 2:00:19 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren appeared on one of the late night talk shows last week, beating the class warfare drum and arguing for billions of dollars in new social programs paid for with higher taxes on millionaires and billionaires. In recent years, though, blue states California, Illinois, Delaware, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maryland and Minnesota adopted this very strategy, they raised taxes on their wealthy residents. How did it work out? All of these states lag behind national average in growth of jobs and incomes.
So, if income redistribution policies are the solution to shrinking the gap between rich and poor, why do they fail so miserably in the states?
The blue states that try to lift up the poor with high taxes, high welfare benefits, high minimum wages and other Robin Hood policies tend to be the places where the rich end up the richest and the poor the poorest.
California is the prototypical example. It has the highest tax rates of any state. It has very generous welfare benefits. Many of its cities have high minimum wage. But day after day, the middle class keeps leaving. The wealthy areas such as San Francisco and the Silicon Valley boom. Yet the state has nearly the highest poverty rate in the nation. The Golden State, alas, has become the inequality state.
In a new report called “Rich States, Poor States” that I write each year for the American Legislative Exchange Council with Arthur Laffer and Jonathan Williams, we find that five of the highest-tax blue states in the nation — California, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Illinois — lost some 4 million more U.S. residents than entered these states over the last decade (see chart). Meanwhile, the big low-tax red states — Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Arizona and Georgia — gained
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
This is way beyond liberal thinking. They kill the goose that lays the golden eggs....without fail.
Pure Marxism. They worship it as a religion even as it proves impossible.
After devouring a crop, locusts will always move on to greener fields.
Pork Barrel Elizabeth wants MORE PORK
I’m in CT and planning to go.
It feels like all 1.3mm that came to Texas came to North Houston!
I know they didn’t though but that is a lot of people in 10 years!
The left is comprised of self righteous don’t get its. People that just don’t understand like a child that cannot understand fractions, or algebra no matter how much tutoring. They don’t get it.
What leftist’s do understand may make them wealthy monetarily, which gives them false sense of comprehensive intelligence, but what they don’t get will make them lose so much in life that’s worth more.
Should have put fences around California and NY to quarantine them from spreading their blue virus. Colorado was infected and there seems to be no cure.
I read where the Cal legislature is working to pass a law to give a state supplement of federal EITC of 30%.
Must be nice to have that kind of wealth to spread around.
I long ago stopped thinking that progressives were idiots. They are not, and their actions are consistent even in the face of contrary evidence such as this article. We must not think this is an accident, but accept that they are deliberately enforcing this policies. I believe they don’t care if they drive people away, as long as the people who remain will keep them in power. Dictators of third world nations are not poor, and the lilly white gentry class of a blue state isn’t hurting either. The people who leave are unhappy and a threat to their ruling class anyway.
Those of us in other states: build the walls, and close the gates! Hurry!
Why does the “Robin hood” myth persist? Robin Hood stole taxes from government and gave it back to the people it was taken from, the rich.
I really hate the Robin Hood meme of "take from the rich to give to the poor". Robin Hood took from the tax collector, and gave the monies back to those from whom the taxes had been collected.
Robin Hood was Anti-Tax not Anti-Rich.
Great minds and all that.
You can add Oregon to that list. 4 years ago they voted in a 2% additional tax on those warning 1 million. result, 1/3 left the state and revenues declined.
Taxes are killing New Jersey and New York, especially property taxes.
Most of those go to the teachers: pension, salary, benefits.
In New Jersey, a very large percentage of the retiring teachers flee to three states: North Carolina, Florida, and Tennessee. They want to collect all right - they just don't want to pay the property taxes that they collect on for the rest of their lives.
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