America’s Greediest State and Local Governments

I ran across two interesting lists showing how politicians at the state and local level are often just as bad as the ones in Washington, DC. First, Forbes has an article identifying the 10 states with the highest income tax rates. The top rate is a big deterrent to entrepreneurs and investors, but it’s also important to look at the income level where the top tax rate takes effect. Yes, Hawaii, Oregon, and California have terrible tax policy, but Iowa, Maine, and Washington, DC, deserve special scorn for raping the middle class.

Hawaii:                       11% (income over $400,000 (couple), $200,000 (single))
Oregon:                      11% (income over $500,000 (couple), $250,000 (single))
California:                   10.55% (income over $1 million)
Rhode Island:             9.9% (income over $373,650)
Iowa:                          8.98% (income over $64,261)
New Jersey                 8.97% (income over $500,000)
New York:                   8.97% (income over $500,000)
Vermont:                     8.95% (income over $373,650)
Maine:                        8.5% (income over $39,549 (couple), $19,749 (single))
Washington, D.C.:      8.5% (income over $40,000)

Looking at the other major source of revenue for state and local governments, the Tax Foundation identifies the cities with the highest total sales tax rate – a number that often includes three separate levies by state, county, and city governments. Here are the top 10. Or should I say worst 10?

Birmingham AL              10.000%
Montgomery AL             10.000%
Long Beach CA                9.750%
Los Angeles CA               9.750%
Oakland CA                    9.750%
Fremont CA                     9.750%
Chicago IL                     9.750%
Glendale AZ                    9.600%
Seattle WA                     9.500%
San Francisco CA           9.500%

One thing that stands out is that California is on both lists, which helps explain why the state is such a basket case. Seattle deserves a special mention because at least there is no state income tax in Washington.

Last but not least, it’s worth mentioning that there’s no sales tax or income tax in New Hampshire. Live Free or Die!

Read Full Post »

Barack Obama Named “Man of the Year” by Libertarian Party

The title of this post is tongue-in-cheek, but the Obama presidency certainly has sparked a resurgence in the limited-government movement. Professor John J. Pitney, Jr., explores this issue for Reason TV.

I actually wanted Obama to win in 2008 for precisely this reason. Yes, Obama is giving us bigger government, but a McCain victory also would have meant bigger government. Some people will argue, quite correctly, that we wouldn’t have been saddled with Obamacare if McCain had won. My response is that McCain’s healthcare plan also was bad, and surely would have become even worse as it meandered through a legislative process controlled by Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. Moreover, cap-n-trade and a value-added tax would have been much more likely under a McCain Administration.

With Obama in the White House, the free-market movement is enjoying a renaissance. That would not have happened under a McCain Administration. Moreover, Republicans on Capitol Hill are at least pretending they now believe in small government. That’s only happening because Obama is in the White House.

In short, a McCain victory would have meant continued growth of government with no prospect of a conservative/libertarian renewal. Obama’s victory has been giving us bad policy, of course, but at least there’s now a backlash for freedom.

For what it’s worth, I’ve always been a fan of this one-step-backwards-two-steps-forward strategy. I wanted Carter to win in 1976, Clinton to win in 1992, and Kerry to win in 2004. If we’re going to have someone in the White House who is doing the wrong thing, it’s better for it to be a Democrat. After all, Carter paved the way for Reagan in 1980 and Clinton set the stage for the 1994 GOP revolution. I suspect something equally interesting will happen this November.

Read Full Post »

Reaganomics, Obamanomics, and Carternomics

National Review captures a key difference between Reagan and Obama, writing that Reagan was willing to incur short-run political pain to make America healthier and stronger.  Obama, by contrast, has pursued the free-lunch Keynesian approach. Only time will tell whether Obama becomes another Jimmy Carter, but he certainly isn’t doing himself any favors by continuously pushing to expand the burden of government.

Both men faced seemingly intractable economic problems with no easy solution, but Reagan understood that curing the nation’s debilitating inflation was going to involve a good deal of short-term economic pain and political unpopularity, and he was prepared to endure that. By contrast, Obama has done everything in his power to avoid painful corrections — at great cost to future taxpayers.  It is increasingly evident that his policies have merely put off these corrections or dragged them out, and that we have not avoided them at all. Reagan’s willingness to accept painful and unpopular but necessary economic adjustments — and Obama’s lack of the same fortitude — is the essence of what separates the two men. …The blowback that resulted from Volcker’s decision to put the economy into a coma was swift and severe. The sharp recession that ensued once Volcker started shrinking the money supply prompted Democrats and Republicans alike to introduce legislation to rein in the Fed. But Reagan refused to back any such action or even criticize Volcker in public. In private, Reagan was candid about what needed to be done, according to the late Bob Novak’s reporting on the subject: “I’m afraid this country is just going to have to suffer two, three years of hard times to pay for the [inflationary] binge we’ve been on,” Reagan said. It is impossible to imagine Obama speaking such unpopular truths in public or in private after having so often expressed the opinion that a massive debt-fueled government-spending program would create millions of jobs and reconstruct an economy torn asunder by years of binging on debt. …his unpopular moves laid the groundwork for three decades of unprecedented economic expansion. So far, we have seen no evidence that Obama’s unpopular policies will pay those kinds of dividends. Like Reagan, Obama inherited an economy with structural problems requiring painful adjustments. Unlike Reagan, he has tried to put off those adjustments or cover them up with feel-good stimulus programs. Reaganomics worked. Obamanomics? Let’s just say it will be interesting to see how much longer those trend lines overlap.

Read Full Post »