[goldstategop]

Rhodaschusetts. Bled dry by big government and higher taxes.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[Lancey Howard]

Is it my imagination or does it seem that every time there's a thread about declining population, it always concerns a liberal state? I have seen recent threads about New Jersey, California, Massachusetts, and now Rhode Island. All are losing population.

My concern is that these "people leaving" are Democrats who have fouled their own nests and now are migrating to other states where they will continue to vote Democrat and screw up those states for everybody else.

[meyer]

“With our budget deficits, the fact that our population is declining and the fact that we know our tax and cost structure is not competitive, Rhode Island needs to reinvent itself. This is not the time for piecemeal answers.”

Time to cut taxes, it seems.

It appears, at least as inferred in the article, that Rhode Island is a high-cost state with little to offer.

[JoeGar]

Rhode Island has for decades lost retired people to warmer climates

They are all moving into my eastern North Carolina neighborhood!

[tkathy]

Must be a democrat run state.

[Hardastarboard]

New England is kind of sitting this decade out.

Thanks to the wonderful religion of socialism, New England will be sitting out the next century, unless they change. Doubt they'll do that.

[LouD]

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.

[Jim Noble]

Rhode Island is a magnet for people who are such losers that they can't even get a government or union job in Massachusetts, Congressman Patrick Kennedy being exhibit #1.

Anyone with even minimal ambition would flee - which is exactly what seems to be happening.

[banjo joe]

Leaving the rust-belt for the sun-belt, and bringing their socialist values with them, so they can bring the same decay and ruin which worked so well for 'em.

Quoting Louis Grizzard: "Welcome South, brother. Eat our food, marry our women -- we just don't care how ya did it up North".

[RKBA Democrat]

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.

[popdonnelly]

We need to place a surtax on liberals, so that they can pay for the government programs they want ;)

[johnthebaptistmoore]

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.

[Labyrinthos]

The governor believes that Rhode Island’s “high tax burden can be a disincentive to live and work here,” said Maynard. He touted “the beginning of major reforms in our tax structure” in the last state budget, such as “increasing the phase-out of the car tax, increasing property tax rebates for our most vulnerable citizens, reducing the capital gains tax and creating a flat-tax alternative.”

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.

[theBuckwheat]

Flee liberal utopias while you can!

Liberals know, in their heart of hearts, they cannot build a "sustainable" society without enslaving high-energy, high-output people, who by their creative abilities become "rich". Everyone knows the "rich" are not paying their "fair share", and must "give back" to society to address "underfunded needs", which of course only exists because the "rich" have oppressed the poor.

[Sybeck1]

This can't be true! How can someone leave a utopia like RI? This must be a misprint and they must mean my Mississippi instead. With all of our poverty and squalor you know! /sarc.

Man, I love Mississippi!

[Antoninus]

What, you mean the young and ambitious don't want to live in a socialist paradise? What is this world coming to?

[MovementConservative]

bttt

[Major Matt Mason]

[Insert name of northeastern state] exodus: Losing the young, ambitious

[BeckB]

I live in Texas and see a lot of these people coming here to work. I also worry that they are bringing their old voting habits with them. Hope they learned something before they left!

[Jack Black]

Interesting that these articles never mention crime and guns. Most of the places people are leaving have higher crime and make gun ownership more difficult.

Many are high density as well.

There is a base safety issue that trumps even taxes. I don't want to live as a disarmed peon. I especially don't want to live as a disarmed peon in a dense urban environment filled with armed criminals.

I left NYC after being mugged and shot at. The turning point was being laughed at by the old guys in the crony-run gun shop across for the downtown police station. "Gedda load of this kid! He tinks he can jus come in here and buy a gun".

I moved to California and did just that. I never looked back and would never again consider living in such a place. That's just me, but I suspect there are many others who feel this way.