Posted on 01/03/2007 1:13:42 AM PST by MinorityRepublican
"It appears, at least as inferred in the article, that Rhode Island is a high-cost state with little to offer."
In defense of RI..The beaches are great. The restaurants are some of the best in the country. Federal Hill is a little slice of Italy that is well worth the visit and the bakeries are the best in the world. I have to send pastry to my children who unfortunately had to moved to Tx and Hawaii for better jobs. My son tried to stay in the NE area and took a job in Conn. He loved it there but the cost of living was killing him. He sold his cape in Conn and bought a mansion in Texas. I have 4 children and 3 have moved out of state.
I left 20 years ago. With only a couple of exceptions, my friends with educations and ambition left, and the rest remained.
Job creation in RI in the 1980s and 1990s? I'm not sure where that took place, but I never found a decent professional gig there, and it wasn't from lack of trying.
There is one statistic out there that shows California losing something 2 million Middle Class over the past 5 years. Most have gone to Nevada and Arizona.
Anyone with even minimal ambition would flee - which is exactly what seems to be happening.
Quoting Louis Grizzard: "Welcome South, brother. Eat our food, marry our women -- we just don't care how ya did it up North".
Yep, and it seems like they are all coming to Pennsylvania, where they are really screwing the Commonwealth up even more than it already was.
Note that the article dwelled on the cost of housing, but discussed the tax situation only as an afterthought. Typical socialist bias. They fail to note that places like northern Virginia, which has stratospheric home prices, are also growing like mad.
It's all about the taxes and the lack of opportunity that high taxes cause. The RI "solution" is going to be predictable; give tax cuts to large companies who promise to move to RI. Well, they'll move there for awhile....until some other state offers them a better deal.
If you have the chance, compare population trends for the lowest tax states in the U.S. You'll note that most are growing their populations at a rate that exceeds the national average.
Your post sounds sooooo familiar. I was transferred to RI in '81, bought a house in Portsmouth (probably the only semblance of reput politics was Aquidneck Island). I always said the RI dims were socialist and repubs were liberal dims. I will never forget right after we moved the TV station was holding a job fair - it was in the middle of the recession - the TV station aired interviews with various people looking for work. When asked what qualifications they had, almost invariably the response was what a good supervisor they would make.
Property taxes (and other taxes) is exactly what drove me out when I retired. As for businesses; they are not going to pay the high cost of doing business with all the state social crap just to open an office there.
It is sad, it was a beautiful place to live and I loved it. I just couldn't afford it for retirement. When my wife retired in '02 I sold out and left. I now have a 4 B/R home on 2 acres in a little corner of VA and pay $782 a year in property taxes.
When Regan tried to base one of the Battleship divisions in Newport, guess who let the fight against it? A retired Admiral. He didn't want drunken sailors (his words) running around the streets and most definitely Bellevue Ave.
OB
I left MA for Georgia. I hated the MA politicians and the Boston Fish wrap.
We need to place a surtax on liberals, so that they can pay for the government programs they want ;)
They're not all moving into eastern NC. They're also swarming into places like Asheville, Blowing Rock and Charlotte.
Lots of them are moving up from Florida too. Must have been too hot for them down there.
A lot of the blue states have more people who choose to vote with their feet by moving to the red states. This is not necessarily a good thing, and I give you the state of New Hampshire as one example of a past red state that's now a very blue state.
"California is losing people? That's news to me!"
I can't write that the their is a net loss but there has been a steady migration of people out of CA to state like NV, OR and WA for a long time. Many are, as is cited in the RI article, cashing out of the home to live the life of Riley in other states, even Iowa (Money Magazine). Many are pushed out due to the high cost of housing and CA taxes.
Certainly there is no shortage of illegals entering CA.
"Yep, and it seems like they are all coming to Pennsylvania, where they are really screwing the Commonwealth up even more than it already was."
Hey I resemble that! ;-) Just moved from Michigan to PA.
And then you have Narragansett where the local SWAT team will pull you over for driving 26 MPH in a 25 MPH zone. No thank you. I prefer to spend my hard earned money in states that have something to offer other than an evening in the local justice court.
They're losing legal Americans, I'm sure that's more than offset by the illegals entering the state.
Typical liberal response. Reducing the tax burden on the lowest elements in the economic food change does little to develop long term economic growth. If you want business and econmomic develpoment, then reduce taxes on the businesses and the people who own and operate the businesses.
State-Local Tax Burdens, Calendar Year 2005
Rank State State/Local taxes as
% of per capita income
U.S. average 10.10%
1 Maine 13.00%
2 New York 12.00%
3 Hawaii 11.50%
4 Rhode Island 11.40%
5 Wisconsin 11.40%
6 Vermont 11.10%
7 Ohio 11.00%
8 Nebraska 10.90%
9 Utah 10.90%
10 Minnesota 10.70%
11 Arkansas 10.50%
12 Connecticut 10.50%
13 West Virginia 10.50%
14 New Jersey 10.40%
15 Kansas 10.40%
16 Louisiana 10.40%
17 Maryland 10.30%
18 Indiana 10.30%
19 Kentucky 10.30%
20 California 10.30%
21 Arizona 10.20%
22 Michigan 10.10%
23 Wyoming 10.10%
24 Washington 10.00%
25 Iowa 10.00%
26 Mississippi 10.00%
27 Idaho 10.00%
28 North Carolina 10.00%
29 New Mexico 9.90%
30 Illinois 9.80%
31 Georgia 9.80%
32 Massachusetts 9.80%
33 South Carolina 9.70%
34 Virginia 9.70%
35 Pennsylvania 9.70%
36 Oregon 9.60%
37 Colorado 9.50%
38 Nevada 9.50%
39 Montana 9.50%
40 Oklahoma 9.40%
41 Missouri 9.40%
42 North Dakota 9.40%
43 Texas 9.30%
44 Florida 9.20%
45 South Dakota 8.80%
46 Alabama 8.70%
47 Tennessee 8.30%
48 Delaware 8.00%
49 New Hampshire 7.40%
50 Alaska 6.40%
District of Columbia 12.20%
Source: Tax Foundation, 2005
Especially since the lowest elements tend not to move, it costs too much for them to move. What an idiot.
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