The Slow-Motion Suicide of New York and California

Two of the worst states for tax policy are California and New York.

They have punitive income tax rates, high sales taxes, and myriad other ways of diverting money from the productive sector of the economy to finance bloated public sectors.

I’ve written several time that greedy politicians in these states are driving away taxpayers. Simply stated, successful people are “voting with their feet” and choosing to move to states with lower tax burdens.

Especially states with no income taxes.

But it’s not just people that are moving. As shown by these maps, money is also escaping from California and New York.

The above map comes from Linly Lin and Tom Maloney, who wrote a column for Bloomberg about money-management firms fleeing high-tax states.

Here are some excerpts from their report.

The drip, drip, drip of the finance industry’s exit from New York and California has been measured anecdotally… Elliott Management decamped to West Palm Beach. AllianceBernstein to Nashville. Charles Schwab moved to suburban Dallas. Now, for the first time, there are hard numbers quantifying the exact scope of the exodus. Both states have in the past three years lost firms that managed close to $1 trillion of assets…The exodus from the Northeast and West Coast has meant the loss of thousands of high-paying jobs, straining city and state finances by sapping tax revenue. …The moves, often born out of a desire for lower taxes, …spurring plenty of angst in the places left behind… From the start of 2020 through the end of March 2023, more than 370 investment companies — about 2.5% of the US total, and managing $2.7 trillion in assets — moved their headquarters to a new state. The vast majority of the migration was out of high-cost-of-living locales in the Northeast and on the West Coast and into Florida, Texas and other Sun Belt refuges.

Here’s another map from the column.

In this case, the authors look at how Texas and Florida are the main beneficiaries of America’s internal money migration.

By the way, I think taxes play a much bigger role than weather.

Nobody moves from California to Texas for the climate. Meanwhile, it’s possible that weather helps to explain the big shift from New York to Florida, but keep in mind that most people find Florida summers just as unpleasant as New York winters.

I’ll close by noting that red states have been outperforming blue states, and this Bloomberg data is another piece of powerful evidence to add to our collection.

P.S. My series on Texas vs California and Florida vs New York  also show the superiority of low taxes compared to higher taxes. Maybe, just maybe, there’s a lesson to be learned.

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Blue-to-Red Migration, Part I

I realize it’s not nice to take pleasure in the misfortune of others, but that rule does not apply when bad things happen to greedy politicians.

As such, I greatly enjoy reading about when taxpayers “vote with their feet” by moving from high-tax jurisdictions to low-tax jurisdictions.

I enjoy when there is tax-motivated migration between nations.

And I enjoy when there is tax-motivated migration between states.

Regarding the latter version, there’s a must-read editorial in the Wall Street Journal about the ongoing exodus from fiscal hellholes such as Illinois, New York, and California.

The IRS each spring publishes data on the movement of adjusted gross income (AGI) and taxpayers across state lines from year to year. …the IRS data shows blue states are losing taxpayers and income at an increasing clip. …a net 105,000 people left Illinois in 2021, taking with them some $10.9 billion in AGI. That’s up from $8.5 billion in 2020 and $6 billion in 2019. New York’s income loss increased to $24.5 billion in 2021 from $19.5 billion in 2020 and $9 billion in 2019. California lost $29.1 billion in 2021, more than triple what it did in 2019. By contrast, the lowest tax states added some $100 billion of income during the pandemic. Zero-income-tax Florida gained $39.2 billion—up from $23.7 billion in 2020 and $17.7 billion in 2019. About $9.8 billion of the total arrived from New York, $3.9 billion from Illinois, $3.7 billion from New Jersey and $3.5 billion from California. Texas was another winner, attracting a net $10.9 billion in 2021, which follows a gain of $6.3 billion in 2020 and $4 billion in 2019. Californians represented more than half of Texas’s income gain in 2021.

Congratulations to Texas and Florida. Having no income tax is definitely a smart step.

Here is a chart that accompanied the editorial.

By the way, migration is the headline event, but it is also important to pay attention to who is migrating.

The WSJ‘s editorial notes that the people leaving high-tax states tend to be economically successful.

The IRS data shows that the taxpayers leaving Illinois and New York typically made about $30,000 to $40,000 more than those arriving. Of Illinois’s total out-migration, 28% of the leavers made between $100,000 to $200,000 and 23% made $200,000 or more. By contrast, the average return of a Florida newcomer in 2021 was about $150,000—more than double that of taxpayers who left. High earners spend more, which yields higher sales tax revenue. This helped Florida post a record $22 billion budget surplus last year. California is forecasting a $29.5 billion deficit.

In other words, the geese with the golden eggs are flying away.

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Lessons from the Texas Budget

I shared some data last month from the National Association of State Budget Officers to show that Texas lawmakers have been more fiscally responsible than California lawmakers over the past couple of years.

California politicians were more profligate in 2021 when politicians in Washington were sending lots of money to states because of the pandemic.

And California politicians also increased spending faster in 2022 when conditions (sort of) returned to normal.

These results are not a surprise given California’s reputation for profligacy.

What may be a surprise, however, is that (relative) frugality in Texas has only existed for a handful of years. Here are some excerpts from a report written for the Texas Public Policy Foundation by Vance Ginn and Daniel Sánchez-Piñol.

Over the last two decades, Texas’ total state biennial budget growth has had two different phases. The first phase had budget growth above the rate of population growth plus inflation for five of the six budgets from 2004–05 to 2014–15. The second phase…had budget growth below this rate… Figure 1 shows the average biennial growth rates for the six state budgets passed before 2015 and for the four since then. The average biennial budget growth rate in the former period was 12% compared with the rate of population growth plus inflation of 7.4%. In the latter period, the average biennial growth rate of the budget was cut by more than half to 5.2%, which was well below the estimated rate of population growth plus inflation of 9.4%. This improved budget picture must be maintained to correct for the excessive budget growth in the earlier period. …there could be a $27 billion GR surplus at the end of the current 2022–23 biennium. …the priority should be to effectively limit or, even better, freeze the state budget. Texas should use most, if not all, of the resulting surplus to reduce…property tax collections…these taxes could be cut substantially by restraining spending and using the surplus to reduce school district M&O property taxes to ultimately eliminate them over time.

The article has this chart, which is a good illustration of the shift to fiscal restraint in Texas.

For all intents and purposes, Texas in 2016 started abiding by fiscal policy’s Golden Rule.

And this means the burden of government is slowly but surely shrinking compared to the private sector.

That approach is paying big dividends. Spending restraint means there is now a big budget surplus, which is enabling a discussion of how to reduce property taxes (Texas has no income tax).

P.S. I shared data back in 2020 looking at the fiscal performance of Texas and Florida compared to New York and California.

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Fiscal Follies: Texas vs. California, Part VIII

I have a seven-part series (here, here, here, here, here, here and here) comparing Texas and California, mostly to demonstrate that the not-so-Golden State has hurt itself with excessive taxation and a bloated government.

Today, we’re going to augment our comparisons by looking at a very practical example of how California’s approach is much worse.

The National Association of State Budget Officers publishes an interesting document (at least if you’re a budget wonk) entitled State Expenditure Report.

And if you to to Table 2 of that report, you’ll find the most important measure of state fiscal policy, which shows how fast the burden of government spending increased over the past two years.

Lo and behold (but to no one’s surprise), California politicians increased the spending burden much faster than their Texas counterparts.

As you can see, both states were irresponsible the first year, thanks in large part to the all the pandemic-related handouts approved by Trump and Biden.

But California was twice as bad. Politicians in Sacramento used federal handouts to finance a grotesque spending binge (whereas the spending binge in Texas deserves a more mild adjective, such as massive).

Both states were better the second year, with California’s spending burden climbing by 2.2 percent in 2022 and Texas actually delivering a spending cut.

Remember, though, that the spending burden exploded between 2020 and 2021, so the 2022 numbers only look reasonable compared to the bloated trendline.

Now let’s consider whether California’s grotesque spending binge had negative consequences.

The answer is yes, according to a Wall Street Journal editorial.

Gov. Gavin Newsom last year touted a $100 billion budget surplus as evidence of California’s progressive superiority. He was less triumphant…when announcing a $22.5 billion deficit in the coming year, a contrast to Texas’s record $32.7 billion surplus. …California’s problem, as usual, is that Democrats baked too much spending into their budget baseline. They expanded Medicaid to undocumented immigrants over the age of 50, enacted universal pre-school and school lunches, extended paid family leave by two weeks, and boosted climate spending by $10 billion. …Much of Texas’s surplus this year owes to surging sales-tax revenue from inflation and population growth—i.e., Californians moving to Texas and spending their tax savings. Mr. Newsom claimed Tuesday that California has a more “fair” tax system than the Lone Star State and that Texans pay more in taxes. This is disinformation. According to the Census Bureau, California’s per capita state tax collections ($6,325) were second highest in the country in 2021 after Vermont. Texas’s ($2,214) were second lowest after Alaska. …California’s budget problems will grow as more of its rich and middle class move to lower-tax states like Texas.

Per-capita state tax collections are the most striking numbers in the editorial.  The average Californian is paying $6,325 for state government, nearly three times as much as the $2,214 that is paid by the average Texan.

Does anyone think that Californians are getting nearly three times as much value as their counterparts in the Lone Star State?

Based on how people are voting with their feet, the answer is obvious. But if you prefer more technical measures of state government value, California loses that contest as well.

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Texas vs. California, Part VI

I asked a couple of years ago, “How long can California survive big government?”

Based on migration patterns, the answer is “Not much longer.” Simply stated, bad fiscal and regulatory policy have produced a long-run decline for the Golden State. So we shouldn’t be surprised that people are fleeing.

And it appears Californians like escaping to Texas, a state with no personal or corporate income tax.

I’ve written several times about the divergent performance of the two states.

• March 2010
• February 2013
• April 2013
• October 2018
• June 2019

So let’s make today’s column the sixth edition of Texas vs. California.

We’ll start with a column in the Wall Street Journal by Joe Lonsdale, a venture capitalist who explains why he and his company are moving to Texas.

I love California…and have spent most of my adult life in the San Francisco Bay Area, founding technology companies like Palantir and Addepar and investing in many others. In 2011 I founded 8VC, a venture-capital firm that today manages more than $3.6 billion in committed capital. …I am moving myself and dozens of my 8VC colleagues to a new land of opportunity: Texas. The harsh truth is that California has fallen into disrepair. Bad policies discourage business and innovation, stifle opportunity and make life in major cities ugly and unpleasant. …That’s not all. The California government is beholden to public-employee unions and spending is out of control. A broken environmental review process means it takes a decade of paying lawyers to build anything. Legislation makes it impossible for businesses to hire contractors without an exemption—granted by friends in the legislature, as with the music industry, or won by spending hundreds of millions on a referendum, as gig-economy companies with drivers just did. This isn’t how business is done in developed countries. …It’s tragic that California is no longer hospitable to that mission, but beautiful that Texas is. Our job as entrepreneurs and investors is to build the future, and I know of no better place to do so than Texas.

In a report for CNBC, Ari Levy and Lora Kolodny write about Elon Musk’s looming escape to the Lone Star State.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk put his California houses on the market this year while he was sparring with state lawmakers over Covid-19 restrictions. He’s simultaneously been expanding operations in Texas and cozying up to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott. Now, several of his close friends and associates say that Musk has told them he’s planning to move to the Lone Star State. …California, often condemned by the super rich for its high tax rates and stiff regulations, has seen an exodus of notable tech names… In May, as businesses across California were forced to remain closed because of the pandemic, Musk tweeted that he was moving Tesla’s headquarters and future development from California to Texas and Nevada. Getting out of California, with the highest income tax in the country, and into Texas, which has no state income tax, could save Musk billions of dollars.

Meanwhile, Hewlett Packard already has made the move, as reported by the Associated Press.

Tech giant Hewlett Packard Enterprise said it is moving its global headquarters to the Houston area from California, where the company’s roots go back to the founding of Silicon Valley decades ago. …”As we look to the future, our business needs, opportunities for cost savings, and team members’ preferences about the future of work, we are excited to relocate HPE’s headquarters to the Houston region,” CEO Antonio Neri said in a written statement… moving out of Northern California is a loss, at least symbolically, for the tech industry that electronics pioneers William Hewlett and David Packard helped start in a Palo Alto garage in 1939. A plaque outside the home where they worked on their first product, an audio oscillator, calls it the birthplace of Silicon Valley, the “world’s first high-technology region.”

To be sure, the three stories shared above are anecdotes.

But if you look at comprehensive data on both people and income, there’s a very clear pattern. Simply stated, Texas is winning and California is losing.

No, this doesn’t mean Texas is perfect. Or that California is always bad (it’s much better than Texas with regards to asset forfeiture, for instance).

But it’s hard to feel much optimism about the Golden State.

P.S. My favorite California-themed jokes (not counting the state’s elected officials) can be found here, here, here, and here. And here’s some tongue-in-cheek advice for California from the recently departed Walter Williams.

P.P.S. If you prefer comparisons of New York and Florida, click here, here, here, and here.

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Texas vs. California

Time for another edition of our long-running battle between the Lone Star State and the Golden State.

Except it’s not really a battle since one side seems determined to lose.

For instance, Mark Perry of the American Enterprise Institute often uses extensive tables filled with multiple variables when comparing high-performing states and low-performing states.

But when comparing California and Texas, sometimes all you need is one data source because it makes a very powerful point. Which is what he recently did with that data on one-way U-Haul rental rates between California cities and Texas cities.

There’s a very obvious takeaway from this data, as Mark explains.

…there is a huge premium for trucks leaving California for Texas and a huge discount for trucks leaving Texas for California. …U-Haul’s one-way truck rental rates are market-based to reflect relative demand and relative supply. In California there’s a relatively low supply of trucks available and a relatively high demand for trucks destined for Texas; in Texas there’s a relatively high supply of trucks and a relatively low demand for trucks going to California. Therefore, U-Haul charges 3-4 times more for one-way truck rentals going from San Francisco or LA to Houston or Dallas than vice-versa based on what must be a huge net outflow of trucks leaving California (leading to low inventory) and a net inflow of trucks arriving in Texas (leading to high inventory). …in 2016…the ratios for the same matched cities were much smaller, 2.2 to 2.4 to 1, suggesting that the outbound migration from California to Texas as reflected in one-way U-Haul truck rental rates must have accelerated over the last three years.

So why is California so unattractive compared to Texas?

To answer that question, this map from the Tax Foundation is a good place to start. It shows that California has the most punitive income tax of any state, while Texas is one of the sensible states with no income tax.

By the way, I sometimes get pushback from my leftist friends who point out that California’s 13.3 percent tax rate only applies to millionaires.

I don’t think that’s an effective argument since it makes zero sense to penalize a state’s most productive citizens. Especially when they’re the ones who can easily afford to move (and many of them are doing exactly that).

That being said, California pillages middle-class taxpayers as well. If some trendy young millennial wants to live in San Francisco, I wish that person all the luck in the world – especially since the 8 percent tax rate kicks in at just $44,377.

Now let’s ask the question of whether California residents (rich, poor, or middle class) are getting something for all the taxes they have to pay.

• Is there any evidence that they are getting better schools? No.
• How about data showing that they get better health care? No.
• What about research indicating better infrastructure in the state? No.

Instead, they’re paying for a giant welfare state and for a lavishly compensated collection of bureaucrats.

P.S. There’s also plenty of international data showing big government isn’t the way to get good roads, schools, and healthcare.

P.P.S. If you want more data comparing Texas and California, click here, here, and here.

P.P.P.S. Here’s my favorite California vs Texas joke.

P.P.P.P.S. Comparisons of New York and Florida tell the same story.

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Americans “Vote with their Feet” for Lower Taxes

I’ve written many times about people and businesses escaping high-tax states and moving to low-tax states.

This tax-driven migration rewards states with good policy and punishes those with bad policy.

And now we have some new data.

The Wall Street Journal recently opined on the updated numbers.

…some states are booming while others are suffering a European-style sclerosis of population loss and slow economic growth. …The eight fastest-growing states by population last year…also experienced rapid employment and GDP growth spurred by low tax rates and policies generally friendly to business and job creation. Nevada, Arizona, Texas, Washington, Utah, Florida and Colorado ranked among the eight states with the fastest job growth this past year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Nevada, Texas, Washington and Florida have no income tax. …Then there’s California. Despite its balmy weather and thriving tech industry, the Golden State last year lost more people to other states than it gained from foreign immigration. Since 2010, a net 710,000 people have left California for other states. …New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo recently blamed cold weather for the state’s population exodus, but last year frigid New Hampshire with no income tax attracted 3,900 newcomers from other states. …Illinois’s population has declined by 157,000 over the past five years… Cold weather? While Illinois’s population has declined by 0.8% since 2010, Indiana’s has grown 3.1% and Wisconsin’s by 2.2%.

Here’s my favorite part of the editorial.

America as a whole can thank the Founders for creating a federalist system that allows the economic and political safety valve of interstate policy competition.

Amen. Federalism is great for a wide range of reasons, but I especially like that people have the freedom to escape when policy is decentralized.

Companies escape high taxes.

Honeywell International Inc. is snubbing New Jersey and heading south. …Honeywell’s move follows other companies that have moved corporate offices out of states with elevated costs of living and high taxes, including General Electric Co.’s relocation of its headquarter to Boston from Connecticut. Those costs were exacerbated by a new law last year that removed state income-tax deductions on federal taxes. North Carolina has a lower state income tax than New Jersey for higher-paid employees.

Former governors escape high taxes.

Gov. Paul LePage said Monday that he plans to move to Florida for tax reasons… LePage and his wife, Ann, already own a house in Florida and often vacation there. He said he would be in Maine from April to September. Asked where he would maintain his legal residency, LePage replied Florida. …”I have a house in Florida. I will pay no income tax and the house in Florida’s property taxes are $2,000 less than we were paying in Boothbay. … At my age, why wouldn’t you conserve your resources and spend it on your family instead of on taxes?” …LePage often has cited Maine’s income tax – currently topping out at 7.15 percent, down from a high of 8.5 percent when he took office – as an impediment to economic growth and attracting/retaining residents.

Even sports stars avoid class-warfare tax regimes.

Bryce Harper and Manny Machado…will “take home” significantly higher or lower pay depending on which teams sign them and the applicable income tax rates in the states where those teams are based. This impact could be worth tens of millions of dollars. …For example, assume the Cubs and Dodgers offer identical eight-year, $300 million contracts to Machado. Lozano would warn the Dodgers that their offer is decidedly inferior. As a Dodger, Machado’s million-dollar wages would be subject to the top bracket of California’s state income tax rate. At 13.3%, it is the highest rate in the land. In contrast, as a Cub, Machado would be subject to the comparatively modest 4.95% Illinois income tax rate. …the difference in after-tax value of these two $300 million contracts would be $14 million.

Though Lozano needs to warn Machado that the recent election results significantly increase the danger that Illinois politicians will finally achieve their long-held goal of changing the state constitution and replacing the flat tax with a class-warfare system.

Since we’re talking about the Land of Lincoln, it’s worth noting that the editors at the Chicago Tribune understand the issue.

Every time a worker departs, the tax burden on those of us who remain grows. The release on Wednesday of new census data about Illinois was alarming: Not only has the flight of citizens continued for a fifth straight year, but the population loss is intensifying. This year’s estimated net reduction of 45,116 residents is the worst of these five losing years. …Residents fed up with the economic climate here are heading for less taxaholic, jobs-friendlier states. …Many of them left because they believed Illinois is headed in the wrong direction. Because Illinois politicians have raised taxes, milked employers and created enormous public indebtedness that the pols want to address with … still more taxation. …How bad does the Illinois Exodus have to get before its dominant politicians understand that their debt-be-damned, tax-and-spend policies are ravaging this state?

Wow, no wonder Illinois is perceived to be the first state to suffer a fiscal collapse.

Let’s now zoom out and consider some national implications.

Chris Edwards took a close look at the data and crunched some numbers.

The new Census data confirms that people are moving from tax-punishing places such as California, Connecticut, Illinois, New York, and New Jersey to tax-friendly places such as Florida, Idaho, Nevada, Tennessee, and South Carolina. In the chart, each blue dot is a state. The vertical axis shows the one-year Census net interstate migration figure as a percentage of 2017 state population. The horizontal axis shows state and local household taxes as a percentage of personal income in 2015. …On the right, most of the high-tax states have net out-migration. …On the left, nearly all the net in-migration states have tax loads of less than 8.5 percent. …The red line is fitted from a simple regression that was highly statistically significant.

Here’s the chart.

Professor Glenn Reynolds wrote a column on tax migration for USA Today.

He starts by warning states that it’s a very bad recipe to repel taxpayers and attract tax consumers.

IRS data show that taxpayers are migrating from high-tax states like New York, Illinois, and California to low-tax states like Texas and Florida. …In time, if taxpayers tend to migrate from high-tax states to low-tax states, and if people receiving government benefits tend to stay in place or migrate from lower-benefit states to higher-benefit states, then over time lower-tax states will tend to accumulate more people with high earnings, while higher-benefit states will tend to accumulate more people who live on the dole. …if high-benefits states are also high-tax states (as is often the case) since then states with high benefits will accumulate more people who draw on them, while shedding the taxpayers they need to support them. The problem is that the result isn’t stable: High-tax, high-benefit states will eventually go bankrupt because they won’t retain enough taxpayers to support their welfare spending.

He then makes a very interesting observation about the risk that people who leave states such as New York, Illinois, California, and New Jersey may bring their bad voting habits to their new states.

…migrants from high tax states might bring their political attitudes with them, moving to new, low-tax states for the economic opportunity but then supporting the same policies that ruined the states they left. This seems quite plausible, alas, and I’ve heard Coloradans lament that the flow of Californians to their state involved a lot of people doing just that. …If I were one of those conservative billionaires…I might try spending some of the money on some…sort of welcome wagon for blue state migrants to red states. Something that would explain to them why the place they’re moving to is doing better than the place they left, and suggesting that they might not want to vote for the same policies that are driving their old home states into bankruptcy.

Glenn makes a very good point.

As part of my work on defending TABOR in Colorado, I often run into people who fret that the state has moved in the wrong direction because of migration from left-leaning states.

Though Chuck DeVore shared some data on how migrants to Texas are more conservative than people born in the state.

https://twitter.com/ChuckDeVore/status/1060682501818060801

I’ll close today’s column with a helpful map from the Tax Foundation.

All you really need to know is that you should move if you live in a blue state and you should erect a no-leftists-allowed sign if you live in a gray state.

P.S. Everything I wrote about the benefits of tax migration between states also applies to tax migration between nations.

I will never stop defending the right of labor and capital to escape high-tax regimes. I especially enjoy the hysterical reactions of folks on the left, who think that my support of fiscal sovereignty means that I’m “trading with the enemy,” being disloyal to my government, or that I should be tossed in jail.

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Texas vs. California

California is like France. Both are wonderful places to visit.

They’re also great places to live if you’re part of the elite.

But neither is the ideal option for ordinary people who want upward mobility.

Back in 2016, I shared Census Bureau data showing that income was growing much faster for people in Texas, especially if you focus on median income (and this data doesn’t even adjust for the cost of living).

So why is Texas growing faster?

Unsurprisingly, I think part of the answer is that the burden of government is significantly greater in California.

Take a look at this table from the most recent edition of Freedom in the 50 States.

Texas is not the freest state, but its #10 ranking is much better than California’s lowly #48 position.

If you’re wondering why Illinois isn’t at or near the bottom, keep in mind that this is a measure of overall economic freedom, not just fiscal policy.

In other words, California doesn’t just have onerous taxes and an excessive burden of government, it also has lots of red tape and intervention.

These numbers presumably help explain why Babylon Bee came up with this clever satire.

The Texas legislature has approved construction of a border wall surrounding the state in order to keep out unwanted refugees fleeing the rapidly crumbling dystopia of California. …The wall will run around the entirety of Texas, with extra security measures on the west side of the state to ensure undesirable Californian immigrants can’t make it across. …the west side will feature a 10-foot-thick concrete wall with laser turrets, barbed wire, and a moat filled with sharks to stop residents of the coastal state from slipping in undocumented and undetected. …“Far too many immigrants from California come here, take advantage of our pro-business, pro-liberty laws, and refuse to adjust to our way of life,” one Texas state rep said in an address to the assembly. “It is time for us to build a wall and make Governor Jerry Brown pay for it.”

This is the flip side of Walter Williams’ joke about California building a wall to keep taxpayers imprisoned.

But let’s return to serious analysis.

Writing for Forbes, Chuck DeVore highlights some differences between his home state and his new state.

Over the past decade, the top states by GDP growth are: North Dakota, Texas, Nebraska, Washington, and Oregon. …When using Supplemental Poverty Measure, the states with the highest poverty as averaged from 2014 to 2016, are: California (20.4%); Florida (18.8%); Louisiana (18.4%), Arizona (17.8%) and Mississippi (16.9%). The national average Supplemental Poverty rate over the last three years reported was 14.7%. Texas’ poverty rate was at the national average. …Combining two key factors, economic growth from 2007 to 2017 and the Supplemental Poverty Measure from 2014 to 2016, provides a better look at a state’s economic wellbeing.

Here’s a table from his column, which looks at growth and poverty in the nation’s five-largest states.

Texas wins for prosperity and California “wins” for poverty.

If you want more data comparing Texas and California, click here, here, and here.

P.S. Texas gets a bad score and California gets a middle-of-the-road score when looking at personal freedom, so the Lone Star State is not a libertarian paradise. If you do the same thing for international comparisons, Denmark is the world’s most libertarian nation.

P.P.S. Here’s my favorite California vs Texas joke.

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Law-Abiding Texans, Gun Ownership, and Saving Lives

It’s impossible to imagine the evil and/or the sickness that would lead a person to massacre strangers in a church.

But it’s very easy to predict the political aftermath of such a tragedy. Folks on the left (some well-meaning, some not) immediately urge more gun control.

I have constitutional objections to their approach, but I realize that line of reasoning doesn’t matter to the anti-Second Amendment crowd, so I generally focus the conversation on the practical shortcomings of such initiatives.

• Why, for instance, will it make a difference to ban scary-looking rifles when other weapons have the exact same functionality?
• Or if they want a total ban, I ask them if they have a feasible plan to confiscate the hundreds of millions of guns in the country?
• Do they actually think signs declaring so-called gun-free zones will discourage or deter murderers from butchering innocent people?
• Is it likely that criminals will obey gun control laws when they already disregard laws against murder, rape, robbery, and assault?
• If they argue guns cause crime, what is their response to the link between expanded gun ownership or decreases in violent crime?

Let’s focus on that last point, which is especially relevant since the death toll in Texas presumably would have been much higher if a good person with a gun didn’t put a stop to the mayhem.

Here are some excerpts from the Washington Post‘s report on what happened.

Johnnie Langendorff stumbled into the crossfire in a total accident. …As he passed the church…he saw…A man clad all in black was…trading shots with another man holding a rifle. …The man in black hauled off in his SUV. The second man with the rifle — a neighbor identified Monday by Arkansas-based 40/29 News as Stephen Willeford — approached Langendorff. The two men were strangers. Willeford said his daughter heard gunshots at the nearby First Baptist Church and told him she’d seen a man in all-black attire… A former NRA instructor…, Willeford immediately sprung into action. …Willeford raced across the street to the church and confronted Kelley… Langendorff said Willeford “briefed me quickly on what had just happened and said he had to get him.” “So that’s what I did.” …the two men shot off in pursuit in Langendorff’s truck… Langendorff wove his truck at high speed through traffic while trying to catch the fleeing SUV. The speedometer crossed 95 mph while the driver narrated everything to law enforcement. …Kelley’s vehicle…veered off the roadway and into a ditch… Langendorff pulled his own truck within 25 yards. …Police were on the scene within five to seven minutes… An autopsy of Kelley showed that he was shot twice — once in the leg and again in the torso — before shooting himself in the head… On Sunday night, Langendorff explained that his reaction — jumping into a car chase — was a simple calculation. “He just hurt so many people, he affected so many people’s lives, why wouldn’t you want to take him down?”

The Wall Street Journal editorializes on some of the implications.

…forgive us if we focus on Stephen Willeford, the local plumber who saved lives by grabbing his rifle and firing at Kelley. …The two locals are being hailed as heroes since their quick action was the only deterrent to more murders until police arrived. Kelley, who was discharged from the Air Force for bad conduct, should not have been able to obtain a gun legally, but the Journal reports that the military failed to send his conviction record to the FBI. The harsh reality of mass murders is that often only the presence of someone with a legal weapon to shoot back can stop the rampage. …No one wants crowds of vigilantes looking for someone to shoot, but we’re sure glad Stephen Willeford had a rifle and knew how to use it.

Rich Lowry of National Review applauds the heroism of the two Texans who acted to save lives.

Before the Texas church shooter encountered any police officers, he was run off a highway and dead. He had been shot and chased by two private citizens who took it upon themselves to respond to a heinous crime when no one with a badge was anywhere to be found. …The response by the two bystanders who refused to stand by…was a characteristically small-town American act of self-reliance that shows, no matter how tattered our civil society may be, it still produces people who will risk life and limb for others without hesitation, unbidden by anything other than their own sense of obligation. When Stephen Willeford, 55, heard of the shooting, he left his house barefoot with his AR-15 and started exchanging fire with Kelley outside the church. An expert shot, Willeford hit Kelley and reportedly aimed for the gaps on his body armor. When Kelley got in an SUV and sped off, Willeford jumped in Johnnie Langendorff’s truck and told him to give chase. …Willeford and Langendorff would have been justified in considering their work done when the shooter left the scene of his massacre. They would have been justified in considering it done when he crashed his vehicle. They instead were prepared for another gunfight in the cause of incapacitating him themselves.

And he warns about the real-world implications of gun control.

Any gun-control measure that is sweeping enough to make a dent in the country’s gun stock and render gun ownership difficult enough to, at the margins, keep firearms out of the hands of psychopaths will inevitably affect law-abiding people as well. In places like rural Texas that would rightly be considered a serious imposition. Without a gun, if something goes wrong, the only option is sitting and waiting for the authorities to show up.

Amen. Cops play an important role, but usually after a crime is committed. As this image illustrates, when seconds count, the police are minutes away.

So let’s make life harder for bad people by letting good people defend themselves.

By the way, some people are blaming the Air Force for failing to place the murderer into the system since that would have barred him from legally buying a gun. I’m sure that was an oversight rather than a deliberate decision, so I’m reluctant to make that a big issue. I’m actually more concerned that this dirtbag abused his family and fractured the skull of a one-year old child, yet was jailed for only one year.

Call me crazy, but that seems ludicrously lax. Heck, we put old people in jail for five times longer for trivial offenses such as failing to file a form. Shouldn’t grievous bodily harm to an infant have harsher implications? This is almost as crazy as fining a gun owner $1,000 after he saved a child’s life.

Let’s conclude by returning to the main issue of today’s column. In the past, I’ve joked about gun-loving Texans (the difference between conservatives, liberals, and Texans, the Texas v. Europe approach to fighting terrorism, and Texas, California, and the coyote), but today let’s be glad one of those guys used his “assault rifle” to save lives.

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Teaching Economics to Texans: Three Cheers (and Three Videos) for Price Gouging

I generally use Texas as a good example when discussing public policy. Particularly compared to places such as California.

I like the sensible attitude about guns, but the absence of an income tax is particularly admirable when considering economic issues, and I confess to being greatly amused when I read about jobs and investment escaping high-tax states like California and moving to the Lone Star State.

But being more pro-market than California is a low bar to clear. And I’ve written that government is too big in Texas.

And now, because of Hurricane Harvey, I have another reason to criticize the state.

Texas has a law against “price gouging,” which means politicians there (just like the politicians in places like Venezuela) think they should get to determine what’s a fair price rather than allow (gasp!) a free market.

The state’s Republican Attorney General is even highlighting his state’s support for this perverse example of price controls.

>Price gouging by Texas merchants in the path of Hurricane Harvey has drawn the attention of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who said Saturday that his office is looking into such cases. …”We’ll be dealing with those people as we find them,” he said. …Paxton issued a warning about price gouging Friday as the hurricane approached the Texas coast. Texas law prohibits businesses from charging exorbitant prices for gasoline, food, water, clothing and lodging during declared disasters.

Paxton is right about Texas law, but he is threatening to enforce a terrible policy.

To help explain why Texas law is bad and why the Attorney General is misguided, here’s a video from John Stossel on so-called price gouging.

It’s disgusting that Mississippi arrested John. The guy should have received a medal for putting his money at risk to serve others.

To augment Stossel’s analysis, here’s a video from Learn Liberty that explains why politicians shouldn’t interfere with the price system.

And here’s Walter Williams discussing the role of “windfall profits” and how high returns encourage the reallocation of resources in ways that benefit consumers.

The bottom line on this issue is that buyers understandably want low prices, particularly in emergency situations.

But that makes no economic sense. However, since buyers generally outnumber sellers, politicians will always have an incentive to demagogue on the issue.

I’m not surprised when we get economic illiteracy from certain politicians. Nonetheless, it’s very disappointing when Texas lawmakers sink to that level. I hope Mr. Paxton at least is feeling guilty.

P.S. But I’ll close on an upbeat note by sharing my collection of Texas-themed humor: Here, here, here, and here.

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Trump Should Follow the Texas (or Hong Kong) Model of Small Government

I’m very happy that we don’t have a one-world government, but my views have nothing to do with conspiratorial fears involving blue helmets and black helicopters.

Instead, I’m happy that there are lots of independent nations because that means lots of different approaches to public policy. And that means we have lots of real-life experiments about the relative merits of big government vs small government.

And this brings me joy because the evidence overwhelmingly shows that you get much better results when the size and scope of government is constrained.

Just compare France and Switzerland. Or look at the wreckage of communism. Or consider the prosperity of Hong Kong and Singapore.

Heck, I’ve put together all sorts of long-run comparisons to show that free markets produce much better results than statism.

This is also why I like federalism inside a nation. I think this decentralized approach leads to better policy, as we can see from Switzerland.

But it also means I have another set of real-life experiments about public policy.  And, once again, this brings a smile to my face because the data clearly show the negative consequences of big government.

It’s especially amusing to compare California and Texas. The Golden State is a playground for statist policies, including the highest income tax in the nation. The Lone Star State, by contrast, is famous for its laissez-faire approach and it doesn’t have any income tax.

And if you look at income data, we have very clear evidence that living standards are climbing much faster in Texas, particularly for the middle class.

I’m certainly not the only person to notice that there’s a clear link between good policy and good results.

Writing for Investor’s Business Daily, Vance Ginn of the Texas Public Policy Foundation compares Texas and California. He starts by noting that the Lone Star State and the Golden State share some common characteristics.

Texas and California…contribute 25% of U.S. economic output, have similar abundances of natural resources, and are where 20% of Americans reside.

But that’s where the similarity ends. California almost surely wins the battle for which state has the best climate and scenery, but Texas is way ahead when you measure economic freedom.

Texas has low taxes, no personal income tax, and less regulation, versus California’s high taxes, highest marginal personal income tax rate nationwide, and burdensome regulations. The Economic Freedom of North America report…ranks Texas as the third most free state and California as second worst. The Tax Foundation ranks Texas as having the 14th best business tax climate while California ranks third worst.

Vance then addresses the left-wing stereotype that Texas is a poverty-stricken backwater.

He looks at various measures and finds that Texas always comes out on top. There’s more poverty in California.

What about poverty? Taking the average over the 2013 to 2015 period, the Census Bureau provides the official poverty rate of 16.1% in Texas and 15% in California, which suggests that the critics are right. However, that rate doesn’t account for regional differences in housing costs or noncash government assistance. The supplemental poverty rate includes these factors and instead finds a rate of 14.9% in Texas while California has the highest rate nationwide at 20.6%.

But there’s more income in Texas.

What about real income? Average nominal median household income from 2010 to 2014 (in 2014 dollars) in California ($61,489) is 17% higher and nationwide ($53,482) is 1.7% higher than in Texas ($52,576). But, the Bureau of Economic Analysis’ regional price parities data for 2014 show that the cost of living for California is 17% higher and the U.S. average is 3.5% higher than in Texas. Therefore, real income in Texas purchases as much as in California and even more when you consider that Texas doesn’t have a personal income tax.

Vance then points out that there is more income inequality in California, which I generally think is an irrelevant measure.

In this case, though, it probably does matter because bad policy is causing disproportionate harm for the poor and middle class in California.

The column also looks at the jobs data (which will cause special angst for Paul Krugman).

In the last decade, Texas has been the economic and job creation engine as the real private sector expanded 29% in Texas compared with only 14% in California. Moreover, total civilian employment increased 1.2 million in California but 1.7 million in Texas, with a labor force two-thirds the size of California’s. This increase in Texas’ employment accounts for nearly one-third of all jobs created nationwide.

So what’s the moral of the story?

Vance closes his column with some very appropriate advice for the incoming Trump Administration.

The more you tax and regulate something, the less you get of it. Clearly, less government contributes to higher standards of living in Texas. …As the new administration and policymakers nationwide reassess which direction to take, it’s important to remember that spending is the disease and taxes are a function of that disease. Restraining spending growth while following the Texas model of free market capitalism would be an excellent way to get the economy, and personal finances, back on track.

None of this means policy is perfect in Texas, needless to say. There are several ways that policy could be improved.

But if you’re looking for general lessons about the relative merits of big government vs. small government, both Texas and California are role models. They teach us lessons about job creation. About business climate. About government efficiency. And about labor mobility. And the lesson is always the same: You get better results when government is smaller and less intrusive.

Last but not least, there’s even a very amusing joke about California, Texas, and a coyote.

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Debunking Inequality Myths

I shared a very amusing column last year about “a modest proposal” to reduce income inequality.

Written tongue-in-cheek by David Azerrad of the Heritage Foundation, the premise was that society could be made more “fair” by exiling – or perhaps even selling to the highest bidder – America’s richest people.

David’s piece cleverly made the point that such a policy would dramatically lower inequality, but would do nothing to boost the living standards of poor people. Indeed, when you consider all the damage that would be caused if America lost its top entrepreneurs, investors, and business owners, lower-income people obviously would suffer immense hardship as the economy shrank.

Unfortunately, there’s no evidence that Hillary Clinton read his article. Or, if she did, she obviously didn’t learn anything. Her agenda, which is echoed by almost all leftists, is endlessly higher taxes to fight the supposed scourge of inequality.

I’ve always thought inequality was the wrong target. If politicians really cared about the less fortunate, they would instead focus on growth in order the reduce poverty.

But our friends on the left apparently believe (or, if they’re familiar with historical data, they pretend to believe) that the economy is a fixed pie. So if someone in the top-1 percent, top-5 percent, top-10 percent, or top-20 percent gets more money, then the rest of us must have less money.

Heck, they don’t even understand the data that they like to cite. Writing for National Review, Thomas Sowell debunks many of the left’s most-cherished talking points about inequality.

When we hear about how much more income the top 20 percent of households make, compared with the bottom 20 percent of households, one key fact is usually left out. There are millions more people in the top 20 percent of households than in the bottom 20 percent of households. …In 2002, there were 40 million people in the bottom 20 percent of households and 69 million people in the top 20 percent. A little over half of the households in the bottom 20 percent have nobody working. You don’t usually get a lot of income for doing nothing. In 2010, there were more people working full-time in the top 5 percent of households than in the bottom 20 percent. …Household income statistics can be very misleading in other ways. …The number of people per American household has declined over the years. When you compare household incomes from a year when there were 6 people per household with a later year when there were 4 people per household, you are comparing apples and oranges. Even if income per person increased 25 percent between those two years, average household income statistics will nevertheless show a decline.  …household income statistics can show an economic decline, even when per capita income has risen.

My Cato Institute colleague, Mike Tanner, has a must-read comprehensive study on inequality that was just released today. Here are some of the parts I found especially enlightening, starting with a very important passage from his introduction.

…contrary to stereotypes, the wealthy tend to earn rather than inherit their wealth… Most rich people got that way by providing us with goods and services that improve our lives. Income mobility may be smaller than we would like, but people continue to move up and down the income ladder. Few fortunes survive for multiple generations, while the poor are still able to rise out of poverty. More important, there is little relationship between inequality and poverty. The fact that some people become wealthy does not mean that others will become poor.

Mike then spends a few pages debunking Thomas Piketty (granted, an easy target, but still a necessary task) and pointing out that some folks overstate inequality.

But more importantly, he then points out that there is still considerable income mobility in the United States. Rich people often don’t stay rich and poor people frequently don’t stay poor.

…wealth often dissipates across generations; research shows that the wealth accumulated by some intrepid entrepreneur or businessperson rarely survives long. In many cases, as much as 70 percent has evaporated by the end of the second generation and as much as 90 percent by the end of the third. Even over the shorter term, the composition of the top 1 percent often changes dramatically. If history is any guide, roughly 56 percent of those in the top income quintile can expect to drop out of it within 20 years. …of those on the first edition of the Forbes 400 in 1982, only 34 remain on the 2014 list, and only 24 have appeared on every list. …At the same time, it remains possible for the poor to become rich, or, if not rich, at least not poor. Studies show that roughly half of those who begin in the bottom quintile move up to a higher quintile within 10 years. …And their children can expect to rise even further. One out of every five children born to parents in the bottom income quintile will reach one of the top two quintiles in adulthood.

Here’s his graph with the relevant data.

Mike also debunks that notion that poor people are poor because rich people are rich.

…it is important to note that poverty and inequality are not the same thing. Indeed, if we were to double everyone’s income tomorrow, we would do much to reduce poverty, but the gap between rich and poor would grow larger. Would this be a bad thing? …The idea that gains by one person necessarily mean losses by another reflects a zero-sum view of the economy that is simply untethered to history or economics. The economy is not fixed in size, with the only question being one of distribution. Rather, the entire pie can grow, with more resources available to all.

His study is filled with all sorts of data, but this graph may be the most important tidbit.

It shows that the poverty rate has remained relatively constant, oscillating around 14 percent, during the period when the so-called top-1 percent were generating large amounts of additional income.

Mike then spends some time agreeing that inequality can be bad if it is the result of subsidies, bailouts, protectionism, and handouts.

Amen. Rich people deserve their money if they earn it in the marketplace. But if they get rich via TARP bailouts, Ex-Im Bank subsidies, protectionist barriers, green-energy boondoggles, or some other form of cronyism, that’s reprehensible and unjustified.

Most important of all, he closes by explaining that inequality isn’t what’s important. Policy should be focused on reducing poverty, which means more economic growth.

There are…two ways to reduce inequality. One can attempt to bring the bottom up by reducing poverty, or one can bring the top down by, in effect, punishing the rich. Traditionally, we have tried to reduce inequality by taxing the rich and redistributing that money to the poor. …Despite the United States spending roughly a trillion dollars each year on antipoverty programs at all levels of government, by the official poverty measure we have done little to reduce poverty. …we are unlikely to see significant reductions in poverty without strong economic growth. Punishing the segment of society that most contributes to such growth therefore seems a poor policy for serious poverty reduction. …While inequality per se may not be a problem, poverty is. …policies designed to reduce inequality by imposing new burdens on the wealthy may perversely harm the poor by slowing economic growth and reducing job opportunities.

Exactly. The notion that we can help the poor by making America more like a high-tax European-style welfare state is laughable.

By every possible standard, the United States is out-pacing Europe in terms of jobs and growth. And what’s really remarkable is that this is happening even though Obamanomics has given us the weakest recovery since the Great Depression. Imagine how big the gap would be if we has the kind of market-oriented policies that dominated the Reagan and Clinton years!

Let’s close with a very amusing bit of data about inequality from a report in the New York Times.

The author looked at income changes in each state between 1990 and 2014 at all levels of income distribution.

By looking at the state level, we’re delineating the rich and poor within that state. Which is to say that the 90th percentile of personal income in Arkansas will not be the same as the 90th percentile of personal income in New York. This calculation helps us avoid making unfair comparisons of income between places with different costs of living.

Since I wrote just two days ago about the importance of adjusting state income data to reflect the cost of living, I obviously view this as a useful exercise.

But here’s the part that grabbed my attention. As I was reviewing the various charts for all the states, I noticed that inequality has expanded dramatically in the most infamous left-wing states. And usually not simply because rich people got richer faster than poor people got richer. In New York, Illinois, and California, rich people were the only winners.

Yet if you look at Kansas (which is the favorite whipping boy of the left because of Gov. Brownback’s big tax cuts) or the stereotypical red state of Texas, you’ll notice the lower-income and middle-income people did much better.

I guess we can use this data as additional evidence of how statist policies cause inequality.

Best of all, it was in the New York Times, so our leftist friends will have a hard time reflexively dismissing the data. It’s always good when the other side scores an “own goal.”

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Fighting Terrorism: Europe vs. Texas

There are no simple answers to Islamist terrorism, particularly when individual nutjobs are determined to kill a  bunch of innocent people.

But I know that some answers to the problem are wrong. So when politicians like Hillary Clinton say we should have more gun control, I side with police chiefs who recognize that an armed citizenry is a much more effective approach.

Simply stated, we’re dealing with evil people who want to maximize death, so they pick out places where they are less likely to encounter armed resistance.

The European response to terrorism is especially insipid. Law-abiding people are disarmed while terrorists have no problems obtaining all the guns they need.

Which leads to terrible consequences with tragic regularity.

I’m not sure how to categorize this sarcastic look at how Europe responds to a terror attack compared to how Texas responds, but it does make the key point that it’s better to shoot back than die meekly.

Consider this the terrorism version of the joke comparing how the governors of Texas and California respond to a coyote attack.

Though this is a deadly serious issue, not a joking matter.

P.S. If you want some genuine terror-related humor, look at the bottom of this post.

P.P.S. And if you want something truly pathetic, look at how statists try to rationalize terrorism.

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Blue State Fail: California’s Long-Term Economic Decline

Something doesn’t add up. People like me have been explaining that California is an example of policies to avoid. Depending on my mood, I’ll refer to the state as the France, Italy, or Greece of the United States.

But folks on the left are making the opposite argument.

A writer for the Huffington Post tells readers that California is proof that the blue-state model can work.

Many factors contribute to California’s preeminence; one being its liberalism. Republicans don’t like to acknowledge California’s success. …The state’s job growth outpaced the nation’s in the first nine months of last year. California’s non-farm employment of 15.7 million people is at an all-time high. …California’s economy has thrived in spite of relatively high taxes and stringent regulations.

Meanwhile, a couple of columnists for the Washington Post are doing a victory dance based on recent California numbers.

…the…experiences of California…run counter to a popular view, particularly among conservative economists, that tax cuts tend to supercharge growth and tax increases chill it. California’s economy grew by 4.1 percent in 2015, according to new numbers from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, tying it with Oregon for the fastest state growth of the year. That was up from 3.1 percent growth for the Golden State in 2014, which was near the top of the national pack. …almost no one can say that raising taxes on the rich killed that recovery.

And let’s not forget that Paul Krugman attacked me two years ago for failing to acknowledge the supposed success story of job creation in California. I thought he made a very silly argument since the Golden State at that time had the 5th-highest unemployment rate in the nation.

But Krugman and the other statists cited above do have a semi-accurate point. There are some statistics showing that California has out-performed many other states over the past couple of years. Let’s look at the numbers. The St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank has a helpful website filled with all sorts of economic data, including figures from the Bureau of Economic Analysis on per-capita income in states.

I selected California for the obvious reason, but also Texas (since it’s often seen as the quintessential “red state”) and Kansas (which has become infamous for a big tax cut). And, lo and behold, if you look at what’s happened to per-capita income in those states, California has enjoyed the most growth.

Is this evidence that high taxes and a big welfare state are good for growth?

Hardly. California’s numbers only look decent because the state fell into a deep hole during the recession. And, generally speaking, a severe recession almost always is followed by good numbers, even if an economy is simply getting back to where it started.

So let’s expand on the above numbers and look at what’s happened not just over the past five years, but also since 2000 and 2005.

And if you look at California’s relative performance over a 10-year period or 15-year period, all of a sudden the Golden State looks a bit tarnished.

By the way, these numbers are not adjusted for either inflation or for cost of living. The former presumably doesn’t matter for our purposes since changing to inflation-adjusted dollars wouldn’t alter the rankings. Meanwhile, the data on cost of living would matter for comparative living standards (for instance, $46,745 in Texas probably buys more than $52,651 in California), but remember that we’re focusing on changes in per-capita income (i.e., which state is enjoying the most growth, regardless of starting point or how much money can buy in that state).

In any event, the numbers clearly show there’s more long-run growth in Texas and Kansas, and it’s long-run growth rates that really matter if you want more prosperity and higher living standards for people.

But let’s not stop there. Our left-wing friends frequently tell us that per-capita income numbers are sometimes a poor measure of overall prosperity since a few rich people can skew the average.

It’s better, they tell us, to look at median household income since that’s a measure of the well-being of ordinary people. And we can get those numbers (only through 2014, though adjusted for inflation) from the Census Bureau. What does this data show for Texas, California, and Kansas?

As you can see, California is in last place, regardless of whether the starting point is 2000, 2005, or 2010. In other words, California may have enjoyed some decent growth in recent years as it got a bit of a bounce from its deep recession, but it appears that the benefits of that growth have mostly gone to the Hollywood crowd and the Silicon Valley folks. I guess this is the left-wing version of “trickle down” economics.

Perhaps most interesting, the short-run numbers show that tax-cutting Kansas has a comfortable lead over tax-hiking California.

If that trend continues, then over time we can expect that the long-run numbers will begin to diverge as well.

Let’s close by looking at some analysis about those two states for those who want some additional perspective.

Victor David Hanson, a native Californian, has a pessimistic assessment of his state. Here’s some of what he wrote for Real Clear Politics.

The basket of California state taxes — sales, income and gasoline — rates among the highest in the U.S. Yet California roads and K-12 education rank near the bottom. …One in three American welfare recipients resides in California. Almost a quarter of the state population lives below or near the poverty line. …the state’s gas and electricity prices are among the nation’s highest. …Current state-funded pension programs are not sustainable. California depends on a tiny elite class for about half of its income tax revenue. Yet many of these wealthy taxpayers are fleeing the 40-million-person state, angry over paying 12 percent of their income for lousy public services. …Connecticut and Alabama combined in one state. A house in Menlo Park may sell for more than $1,000 a square foot. In Madera three hours away, the cost is about one-tenth of that. In response, state government practices escapism, haggling over transgendered restroom issues and the aquatic environment of a 3-inch baitfish rather than dealing with a sinking state.

The bottom line is that he fears the trend line for his state is moving in the wrong direction.

John Hood takes a look at why the Kansas tax cuts have resulted in budget turmoil, while tax cuts in has state of North Carolina haven’t caused much controversy.

How did Kansas and North Carolina end up in such different conditions? For one thing, while the two states both enacted major tax cuts, they weren’t structured the same way. Kansas punched a large hole in its income-tax base by excluding self-employment income. North Carolina briefly created a version of this exclusion in the immediate aftermath of the Great Recession, but then wisely eliminated it in favor of applying a low, uniform tax rate on a broad base of personal income. In Kansas, lawmakers also allowed themselves to be bamboozled by some out-of-state tax “experts” claiming that cutting income taxes would generate so much new investment, entrepreneurship, and population growth that the revenue loss to the state would be substantially offset. This can actually be true, of course — in the very long run, counted in decades. In the short run of state budgeting, however, policymakers are better off making far more conservative assumptions about revenue feedbacks. …Our state policymakers didn’t just reduce and reform taxes. They also controlled expenditures. Since the enactment of the 2013 tax changes, their authorized budgets have never pushed spending growth above the combined rates of inflation and population growth. Actual spending, in fact, has often come in below even these budgeted amounts.

John’s message is that pro-growth tax cuts don’t generate overnight miracles. Lawmakers have to be prudent when calculating Laffer Curve feedback. And they also should make sure there is concomitant restraint on the spending side of the budget.

The bottom line is that the Kansas tax cuts are good for the state’s economy, but they might not be sustainable unless politicians don’t quickly make reforms to cap spending.

P.S. Closing with some California-specific humor, this Chuck Asay cartoon speculates on how future archaeologists will view California. This Michael Ramirez cartoon looks at the impact of the state’s class-warfare tax policy. And this joke about Texas, California, and a coyote is among my most-viewed blog posts.

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Lessons from State Tax Policy: Kudos for Tennessee and Texas, Mockery for New York and California

Just like with nations, there are many factors that determine whether a state is hindering or enabling economic growth.

But I’m very drawn to one variable, which is whether there’s a state income tax. If the answer is no, then it’s quite likely that it will enjoy better-than-average economic performance (and if a state makes the mistake of having an income tax, then a flat tax will be considerably less destructive than a so-called progressive tax).

Which explains my two main lessons for state tax policy.

Anyhow, I’ve always included Tennessee in the list of no-income-tax states, but that’s not completely accurate because (like New Hampshire) there is a tax on capital income.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that the Associated Press reports that Tennessee is getting rid of this last vestige of  income taxation.

The Tennessee Legislature has passed a measure that would reduce and eventually eliminate the Hall tax on investment income. The Hall tax imposes a general levy of 6 percent on investment income, with some exceptions. Lawmakers agreed to reduce it down to 5 percent before eliminating it completely by 2022.

It’s not completely clear if the GOP Governor of the state will allow the measure to become law, so this isn’t a done deal.

That being said, it’s a very positive sign that the state legislature wants to get rid of this invidious tax, which is a punitive form of double taxation.

Advocates are right that this will make the Volunteer State more attractive to investors, entrepreneurs, and business owners.

Keep in mind that this positive step follows the recent repeal of the state’s death tax, as noted in a column for the Chattanooga Times Free Press.

Following a four-year phase out, Tennessee’s inheritance tax finally expires on Jan. 1 and one advocacy group is hailing the demise of what it calls the “death tax.” “Tennessee taxpayers can finally breath a sigh of relief,” said Justin Owen, head of the free-market group, the Beacon Center of Tennessee, which successfully advocated for the taxes abolishment in 2012.

On the other hand, New York seems determined to make itself even less attractive. Diana Furchtgott-Roth of the Manhattan Institute writes for Market Watch about legislation that would make the state prohibitively unappealing for many investors.

New York, home to many investment partnerships, now wants to increase state taxes on capital gains… New York already taxes capital gains and ordinary income equally, but apparently that’s not good enough. …The New York legislators want to raise the taxes on carried interest to federal ordinary income tax rates, not just for New York residents, but for everyone all over the world who get returns from partnerships with a business connection to the Empire State. Bills in the New York State Assembly and Senate would increase taxes on profits earned by venture capital, private equity and other investment partnerships by imposing a 19% additional tax.

Diana correctly explains this would be a monumentally foolish step.

If the bill became law, New York would likely see part of its financial sector leave for other states, because many investors nationwide would become subject to taxes that were 19 percentage points higher….No one is going to pick an investment that is taxed at 43% when they could choose one that is taxed at 24%.

Interestingly, even the state’s grasping politicians recognize this reality. The legislation wouldn’t take effect until certain other states made the same mistake.

The sponsors of the legislation appear to acknowledge that by delaying the implementation of the provisions until Connecticut, New Jersey and Massachusetts enact “legislation having an identical effect.”

Given this condition, hopefully this bad idea will never get beyond the stage of being a feel-good gesture for the hate-n-envy crowd.

But it’s always important to reinforce why it would be economically misguided since those other states are not exactly strongholds for economic liberty. This video has everything you need to know about the taxation of carried interest in particular and this video has the key facts about capital gains taxation in general

Not let’s take a look at the big picture. Moody’s just released a “stress test” to see which states were well positioned to deal with an economic downturn.

Is anybody surprised, as reported by the Sacramento Bee, that low-tax Texas ranked at the top and high-tax California and Illinois were at the bottom of the heap?

California, whose state budget is highly dependent on volatile income taxes, is the least able big state to withstand a recession, according to a “stress test” conducted by Moody’s Investor Service. Arch-rival Texas, meanwhile, scores the highest on the test because of “lower revenue volatility, healthier reserves relative to a potential revenue decline scenario and greater revenue and spending flexibility,” Moody’s, a major credit rating organization, says. …California not only suffers in comparison to the other large states, but in a broader survey of the 20 most populous states. Missouri, Texas and Washington score highest, while California and Illinois are at the bottom in their ability to withstand a recession.

Of course, an ability to survive a fiscal stress test is actually a proxy for having decent policies.

And having decent policies leads to something even more important, which is faster growth, increased competitiveness, and more job creation.

Though perhaps this coyote joke does an even better job of capturing the difference between the two states.

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Statist Arguments Are Especially Weak When Using Apples-to-Apples Comparisons

While there are many things I admire about Scandinavian nations, I’ve never understood why leftists such as Bernie Sanders think they are great role models.

Not only are income levels and living standards higher in the United States, but the data show that Americans of Swedish origin in America have much higher incomes than the Swedes who still live in Sweden. And the same is true for other Nordic nations.

The Nordics-to-Nordics comparisons seem especially persuasive because they’re based on apples-to-apples data. What other explanation can there be, after all, if the same people earn more and produce more when government is smaller?

The same point seems appropriate when examining how people of Chinese origin earn very high incomes in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, and the United States (all places with reasonably high levels of economic liberty), but are relatively poor in China (where there is still far too much government control over economic affairs).

Again, what possible explanation is there other than the degree of economic freedom?

Let’s now look at two other examples of how leftist arguments fall apart when using apples-to-apples comparisons.

A few years ago, there was a major political fight in Wisconsin over the power of unionized government bureaucracies. State policy makers eventually succeeded in curtailing union privileges.

Some commentators groused that this would make Wisconsin more like non-union Texas. And the Lone Star States was not a good role model for educating children, according to Paul Krugman.

This led David Burge (a.k.a., Iowahawk) to take a close look at the numbers to see which state actually did a better job of educating students. And when you compare apples to apples, it turns out that Longhorns rule and Badgers drool.

…white students in Texas perform better than white students in Wisconsin, black students in Texas perform better than black students in Wisconsin, Hispanic students in Texas perform better than Hispanic students in Wisconsin. In 18 separate ethnicity-controlled comparisons, the only one where Wisconsin students performed better than their peers in Texas was 4th grade science for Hispanic students (statistically insignificant), and this was reversed by 8th grade. Further, Texas students exceeded the national average for their ethnic cohort in all 18 comparisons; Wisconsinites were below the national average in 8… Not only did white Texas students outperform white Wisconsin students, the gap between white students and minority students in Texas was much less than the gap between white and minority students in Wisconsin. In other words, students are better off in Texas schools than in Wisconsin schools – especially minority students.

This is what I call a devastating debunking.

Though Krugman routinely invites mockery, and I’ve enjoyed exposing his disingenuous, sloppy, and dishonest use of data on issues such as Obamanomics, California jobs, American fiscal policy, Greek economics, U.S. and U.K. austerity, German fiscal policy, Estonian economics, British fiscal policy, inflation, European austerity, the financial crisis, and the Heritage Foundation.

Gee, with all these examples, I wonder if there’s a pattern?

Our second example showing the value of apples-to-apples comparisons deals with gun control.

Writing for PJ Media, Clayton Cramer compares murder rates in adjoining American states and Canadian provinces. he starts by acknowledging that a generic US-v.-Canada comparison might lead people to think gun rights are somehow a factor in more deaths.

…for Canada as a whole, murder rates are still considerably lower than for the United States as a whole. For 2011, Canada had 1.73 homicides per 100,000 people; the United States had 4.8 murders and non-negligent homicides per 100,000 people.

But he then makes comparisons that suggest guns are not a relevant factor.

…look at murder rates for Canadian provinces and compare them to their immediate American state neighbors. When you do that, you discover some very curious differences that show gun availability must be either a very minor factor in determining murder rates, or if it is a major factor, it is overwhelmed by factors that are vastly more important.

Gun ownership is easy and widespread in Idaho, for instance, but murder rates are lower than in many otherwise similar Canadian provinces.

I live in Idaho.  In 2011, our murder rate was 2.3 per 100,000 people.  We have almost no gun-control laws here. You need a permit to carry concealed in cities, but nearly anyone who may legally own a firearm and is over 21 can get that permit.  We are subject to the federal background check on firearms, but otherwise there are no restrictions. Do you want a machine gun? And yes, I mean a real machine gun, not a semiautomatic AR-15. There is the federal paperwork required, but the state imposes no licensing of its own.  I have friends with completely legal full-automatic Thompson submachine guns. Surely with such lax gun-control laws, our murder rate must be much higher than our Canadian counterparts’ rate. But this is not the case: I was surprised to find that not only Nunavut (21.01) and the Northwest Territories (6.87) in Canada had much higher murder rates than Idaho, but even Nova Scotia (2.33), Manitoba (4.24), Saskatchewan (3.59), and Alberta (2.88) had higher murder rates.

The same is true for other states (all with laws that favor gun ownership) that border Canada.

What about Minnesota? It had 1.4 murders per 100,000 in 2011, lower than not only all those prairie provinces, but even lower than Canada as a whole.  Montana had 2.8 murders per 100,000, still better than four Canadian provinces and one Canadian territory.  When you get to North Dakota, another one of these American states with far less gun control than Canada, the murder rate is 3.5 per 100,000, still lower than Manitoba, Saskatchewan, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut.  And let me emphasize that Minnesota, Montana, and North Dakota, like Idaho, are all shall-issue concealed-weapon permit states: nearly any adult without a felony conviction or a domestic violence misdemeanor conviction can obtain a concealed weapon permit with little or no effort.

The takeaway from this evidence (as well as other evidence I have shared) is that availability of guns doesn’t cause murders.

Other factors dominate.

P.S. Regarding the gun control data shared above, some leftists might be tempted to somehow argue that American states with cold weather somehow are less prone to violence. That doesn’t make sense since the Canadian provinces presumably are even colder. Moreover, that argument conflicts with this bit of satire comparing murder rates in chilly Chicago and steamy Houston.

P.P.S. In his role as Iowahawk, David Burge has produced some great political satire, including extortion by Obama’s teleprompter, the bible according to Obama, mockery of the Obama campaign’s life-of-Julia moocher, and (my favorite) the video about a government-designed car.

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Texas Is Booming…but CNN Doesn’t Want You to Know Why

Much of my writing is focused on the real-world impact of government policy, and this is why I repeatedly look at the relative economic performance of big government jurisdictions and small government jurisdictions.

But I don’t just highlight differences between nations. Yes, it’s educational to look at North Korea vs. South Korea or Chile vs. Venezuela vs. Argentina, but I also think you can learn a lot by looking at what’s happening with different states in America.

So we’ve looked at high-tax states that are languishing, such as California and Illinois, and compared them to zero-income-tax states such as Texas.

With this in mind, you can understand that I was intrigued to see that even the establishment media is noticing that Texas is out-pacing the rest of the nation.

Here are some excerpts from a report by CNN Money on rapid population growth in Texas.

More Americans moved to Texas in recent years than any other state: A net gain of more than 387,000 in the latest Census for 2013. …Five Texas cities — Austin, Houston, San Antonio, Dallas and Fort Worth — were among the top 20 fastest growing large metro areas. Some smaller Texas metro areas grew even faster. In oil-rich Odessa, the population grew 3.3% and nearby Midland recorded a 3% gain.

But why is the population growing?

Well, CNN Money points out that low housing prices and jobs are big reasons.

And on the issue of housing, the article does acknowledge the role of “easy regulations” that enable new home construction.

But on the topic of jobs, the piece contains some good data on employment growth, but no mention of policy.

Jobs is the No. 1 reason for population moves, with affordable housing a close second. …Jobs are plentiful in Austin, where the unemployment rate is just 4.6%. Moody’s Analytics projects job growth to average 4% a year through 2015. Just as important, many jobs there are well paid: The median income of more than $75,000 is nearly 20% higher than the national median.

That’s it. Read the entire article if you don’t believe me, but the reporter was able to write a complete article about the booming economy in Texas without mentioning – not even once – that there’s no state income tax.

But that wasn’t the only omission.

The article doesn’t mention that Texas is the 4th-best state in the Tax Foundation’s ranking of state and local tax burdens.

The article doesn’t mention that Texas was the least oppressive state in the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Soft Tyranny Index.

The article doesn’t mention that Texas was ranked #20 in a study of the overall fiscal condition of the 50 states.

The article doesn’t mention that Texas is in 4th place in a combined ranking of economic freedom in U.S. state and Canadian provinces.

The article doesn’t mention that Texas was ranked #11 in the Tax Foundation’s State Business Tax Climate Index.

The article doesn’t mention that Texas is in 14th place in the Mercatus ranking of overall freedom for the 50 states (and in 10th place for fiscal freedom).

By the way, I’m not trying to argue that Texas is the best state.

Indeed, it only got the top ranking in one of the measures cited above.

My point, instead, is simply to note that it takes willful blindness to write about the strong population growth and job performance of Texas without making at least a passing reference to the fact that it is a low-tax, pro-market state.

At least compared to other states. And especially compared to the high-tax states that are stagnating.

Such as California, as illustrated by this data and this data, as well as this Lisa Benson cartoon.

Such as Illinois, as illustrated by this data and this Eric Allie cartoon.

And I can’t resist adding this Steve Breen cartoon, if for no other reason that it reminds me of another one of his cartoons that I shared last year.

Speaking of humor, this Chuck Asay cartoon speculates on how future archaeologists will view California. And this joke about Texas, California, and a coyote is among my most-viewed blog posts.

All jokes aside, I want to reiterate what I wrote above. Texas is far from perfect. There’s too much government in the Lone Star state. It’s only a success story when compared to California.

P.S. Paul Krugman has tried to defend California, which has made him an easy target. I debunked him earlier this year, and I also linked to a superb Kevin Williamson takedown of Krugman at the bottom of this post.

P.P.S. Once again, I repeat the two-part challenge I’ve issued to the left. I’ll be happy if any statists can successfully respond to just one of the two questions I posed.

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For State Policy Makers, the Simple (Anti) Tax Solution for Faster Growth

When people in other nations ask me for evidence in favor of low taxes, I often will ask them to compare the economic performance of a high-tax nation like France with the performance of a nation such as Switzerland with less onerous taxes.

If I’m asked by Americans, I generally suggest that they compare different states. For instance, I show them evidence that California has a much more punitive tax system than Texas. And when you look at all the available state rankings, it’s clear that there’s a big difference.

*Tax burdens as a share of state income.

*The State Tyranny Index.

*Mercatus State Fiscal Ranking.

*State Business Tax Climate Index.

*Tax Foundation’s Tax Freedom Day.

*State Freedom Index.

*Death Spiral states.

And I then ask folks to compare economic performance. There’s lots of evidence that Texas is growing much faster and creating far more jobs than California.

Heck, it’s almost as if California politicians want to drive successful people out of the Golden State (fortunately, the state’s politicians didn’t read Walter Williams’ satirical column about putting a barbed-wire fence at the border). And when upper-income taxpayers leave the state, that means taxable income and tax revenue also escape.

Though it’s worth pointing out that the case for low taxes isn’t based solely on comparisons of Texas and California. We know, for instance, that states with no income taxes generally outperform other states.

Moreover, we don’t need to rely on casual empiricism. Here are some of the results from a new study published by the Mercatus Center.

…this study uses the average tax rate as a practical approximation of the overall state tax burden. …The coefficient of average tax rate is negative and statistically significant in both models, suggesting that a higher tax burden as a share of income reduces state economic growth. …Elasticity of −2.6, for example, implies that a 1 percent increase in the tax rate decreases economic growth by 2.6 percent, not percentage points. …While the aforementioned income growth results are insightful, the impact of taxation on the level of income is also important. …income tax progressivity has a significant negative relationship with real GSP per capita. …An alternative way to measure economic activity is to look at the number of private firms that operate in each state. …The main conclusion from the two regression models is that only personal income tax progressivity seems to have a significant negative effect on the growth in the number of firms. … By voting with their feet, people send a clear signal about where they prefer to live and work. …an empirical analysis of migration may show, indirectly, how taxes affect the flow of economic activity across states. …state net immigration rate is negatively related to the personal income tax rate … The net immigration rate also seems to have a significantly negative correlation with the average tax rate and income tax progressivity.

These findings should not be a surprise.

It’s common sense that economic activity – and taxpayers – will flow to states that don’t punish people for creating wealth.

Let’s now circle back to the Texas-vs-California comparisons. Take a look at this remarkable chart put together by Mark Perry of the American Enterprise Institute.

As you can see, total employment in Texas has jumped almost 10 percent since 2008. In California, by contrast, total employment has increased by less than 2/10ths of 1 percent.

So you can see why this Lisa Benson cartoon is so appropriate.

Speaking of humor, this Chuck Asay cartoon speculates on how future archaeologists will view California. And this joke about Texas, California, and a coyote is among my most-viewed blog posts.

All jokes aside, none of this should be interpreted to suggest that Texas is perfect. There’s too much government in the Lone Star state. It’s only a success story when compared to California.

And even though California does worse than Texas in my Moocher Index, it’s worth pointing out that Californians are the least likely of all Americans to sign up for food stamps.

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What Can We Learn by Comparing the Employment Situation in Texas vs. California?

One of the great things about federalism, above and beyond the fact that it both constrains the power of governments and is faithful to the Constitution, is that is turns every state into an experiment.

We can learn what works best (though the President seems incapable of learning the right lesson).

We know, for instance, that people are leaving high-tax states and migrating to low-tax states.

We also know that low-tax states grow faster and create more jobs.

I particularly enjoy comparisons between Texas and California. Michael Barone, for instance, documented how the Lone Star State is kicking the you-know-what out of the Golden State in terms of overall economic performance.

I also shared a specific example of high-quality jobs moving from San Francisco to Houston. And I was also greatly amused by this story (and accompanying cartoons) about Texas “poaching” jobs from California.

In this discussion with Stuart Varney of Fox News, we discuss how Texas is leading the nation in job creation.

But there’s another part of this discussion that is very much worth highlighting.

As illustrated by the chart, we are enduring the worst overall job performance in any business cycle since the end of World War II.

I note in the interview that Obama inherited a bad economy and that Bush got us in the ditch in the first place with all his wasteful spending and misguided intervention.

But Obama also deserves criticism for doubling down on those failed policies.

His so-called stimulus was a flop. Dodd-Frank is a regulatory nightmare. Obamacare is looking worse and worse every day.

No wonder job creation is so anemic.

The real moral of the story, though, is that the poor are the biggest victims of Obama’s statism. They’re the ones who have been most likely to lose jobs. They’ve been the ones to suffer because of stagnant incomes.

Sort of brings to mind the old joke that leftists must really like poor people because they create more of them whenever they’re in charge.

P.S. Speaking of jokes, here’s an amusing comparison of Texas and California. If you want some California-specific humor, this Chuck Asay cartoon is great. And to maintain balance, here’s a Texas-specific joke on how to respond to an attacker.

P.P.S. To close on a serious point, California would be deteriorating even faster if it wasn’t for the fact that the state and local tax deduction basically means that the rest of the country is subsidizing the high tax rates in the not-so-Golden State. Another good argument for the flat tax.

P.P.P.S. At the bottom of this post, you’ll find a great Kevin Williamson column dismantling some sloppy anti-Texas analysis by Paul Krugman.

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Who Should Decide Drug Laws in Colorado and Washington, Voters or U.N. Bureaucrats?

One of the new Tea Party senators, Ted Cruz, gained a lot of support when he was Solicitor General of Texas and successfully defended his state’s ability to execute a murderer over the objections of the International Court of Justice.

At the time, this fight even led me to confess one of my lurid fantasies.

Now we have another battle involving American states and an international bureaucracy.

Here are a couple of passages from a report in the Seattle Times.

A United Nations-based drug agency urged the United States government on Tuesday to challenge the legalization of marijuana for recreational use in Colorado and Washington, saying the state laws violate international drug treaties. …U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said last week that he was in the last stages of reviewing the Colorado and Washington state laws. Holder said he was examining policy options and international implications of the issue.

Here’s a news flash for the bureaucrats at this branch of the United Nations in Vienna: American states are sovereign and don’t need to kowtow to a bunch of mandarins who get bloated (and tax free!) salaries in exchange for…well, I’m not sure what they do other than pontificate, gorge themselves at receptions, and enjoy first class travel at our expense while jetting from one conference to another.

If the people of Washington and Colorado want to legalize certain drugs, that’s their right. They haven’t signed any treaties with the United Nations.

By the way, this has nothing to do with whether drugs should be legalized.

Like John Stossel, Mona Charen, Gary Johnson, Pat Robertson, Cory Booker, and Richard Branson, I’m skeptical of the drug war.

But since I’m an abstainer, I confess I don’t really lose any sleep about the issue.

I generally do get agitated, by contrast, when international bureaucracies seek to impose one-size-fits-all policies on the world. Much of my ire is directed at the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which seeks to penalize jurisdictions that commit the horrible crime of having attractive tax regimes (or, to be more accurate, having tax regimes that are more attractive than those in places such as France and Germany).

But I also get upset with bad policies from the IMF, the World Bank, the EU mega-bureaucracy, and even the World Health Organization.

P.S. Have you ever noticed that U.N. offices are in swanky places such as New York City, Geneva, and Vienna? If these bureaucrats really want to help the world, why aren’t their offices in Havana, Lagos, and Chisinau.  That would be quite appropriate, after all, since Cuba, Nigeria, and Moldova are all members of the U.N. Human Rights Council.

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Texas vs. California

I’ve been pointing out the differences between California stagnation and Texas prosperity for quite some time.

And since California voters approved a new 13.3 percent top tax rate last November, I expect the gap to become even wider.

Simply stated, California is the France of America and Texas is the Cayman Islands of America.

So it’s understandable that the Governor of Texas is telling employers in California that his state has a better climate for job creation.

John Fund of National Review opines on this bit of competition between states.

Texas governor Rick Perry knows how to start a rumble. Last week, he spent a mere $24,000 on radio ads in California, urging firms there to move to Texas, with its “zero state income tax, low overall tax burden, sensible regulations, and fair legal system.” …He begins a four-day barnstorming tour of California today, touting Texas’s virtues to business owners. …several observers acknowledged that Perry has gotten the better of the battle.

Texas is clearly doing better on jobs, and it’s easy to avoid higher taxes when you obey Mitchell’s Golden Rule and restrain the burden of government spending.

Indeed, in the last five years Texas has gained 400,000 new jobs while California has lost 640,000. The Lone Star State’s rate of job growth was 33 percent higher than California’s last year, even as the Golden State finally pulled out of the recession. …Texas’s legislature has just trimmed its $188 billion two-year budget by 8 percent, and the state may have more revenue than it can legally spend because it is barred from raising outlays more than the rate of economic growth.

Here’s a very good Steve Breen cartoon about Perry’s fishing trip to the west coast.

And remember my post about Phil Mickelson threatening to leave the state? Well, Chip Bok has a humorous take on that looming departure.

I’ve already written about the exodus of jobs from California, and expect even more in the future.

P.S. Texas is far from perfect. There’s a good bit of crony capitalism in the state. But there’s also some bad policy in the Cayman Islands, so the analogy is appropriate.

P.P.S. This “coyote” joke about California and Texas is the fourth-most viewed post in the history of this blog.

P.P.P.S. Here’s a photo that shows the California bureaucracy in action, and a cartoon featuring archaeologists from the future.

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Just Because California Is Terrible, that Doesn’t Mean Texas Is Perfect

Texas is in much better shape than California. Taxes are lower, in part because Texas has no state income tax.

No wonder the Lone Star State is growing faster and creating more jobs.

And the gap will soon get even wider since California voters recently decided to drive away more productive people by raising top tax rates.

But a key challenge for all governments is controlling the size and cost of bureaucracies.

Government employees are probably overpaid in both states, but the situation is worse in California, as I discuss in this interview with John Stossel.

But being better than California is not exactly a ringing endorsement of Texas fiscal policy.

A column in today’s Wall Street Journal, written by the state’s Comptroller of Public Accounts, points out some worrisome signs.

As the chief financial officer of the nation’s second-largest state, even I have found it hard to get a handle on how much governments are spending, and how much debt they’re taking on. Every level of government is piling up incredible bills. And they’re coming due, whether we like it or not. Even in low-tax Texas, property taxes have risen three times faster than the inflation rate and four times faster than our population growth since 1992. Our local governments, meanwhile, more than doubled their debt load in the last decade, to more than $7,500 in debt for every man, woman and child in the state. In Houston alone, city-employee pension plans are facing an unfunded liability of $2.4 billion. But too many taxpayers aren’t given the information they need to make informed decisions when they vote debt issues. Recently I spent several months holding about 40 town-hall meetings with Texans across our state. Each time, I asked the attendees if they could tell me how much debt their local governments are carrying. Not a single person in a single town had this information.

In other words, taxpayers need to be eternally vigilant, regardless of where they live. Otherwise the corrupt rectangle of politicians, bureaucrats, lobbyists, and interest groups will figure out hidden ways of using the political process to obtain unearned wealth.

P.S. The second-most-viewed post on this blog is this joke about Texas, California, and a coyote, so it must be at least somewhat amusing. If you want some Texas-specific humor, this police exam is amusing and you’ll enjoy this joke about the difference between Texans, liberals and conservatives. And if you want California-specific humor, this Chuck Asay cartoon hits the nail on the head.

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Taking a Logical Step to Protect Students, a Texas School District Allows Armed Teachers

There’s a lot to like about Texas. The state has no income tax, for instance, which we know is a good recipe for faster growth and more prosperity.

That’s one of the reasons why the Lone Star State kicks the you-know-what out of California in the battle to attract jobs and investment.

But Texans also have a more sensible approach to thwarting crime. Some of them apparently took my IQ test, which asks whether murderers prefer armed victims or unarmed victims, and they wisely concluded that the ability to shoot back is a lot better than cowering in a corner (you can see the California mentality in the third image in this post).

So one school district allows teachers and staff to carry concealed weapons. Here’s some of what’s reported in the Fort Worth Star Telegram.

David Thweatt, superintendent of the tiny Harrold school district in northwest Texas, believes his staff is ready. Besides special locks and security cameras, an undisclosed number of staff members and teachers carry concealed handguns. Thweatt said the “guardian plan,” which drew international attention when it was implemented in 2008, definitely enhances student safety. “Is that 100 percent? No,” Thweatt said Friday in a telephone interview. “Nothing is 100 percent. But what we do know is that we’ve done all we can to protect our children.” At the time the plan was put in place, Harrold, about 150 miles northwest of Fort Worth, was the only known public school district in Texas and the U.S. that allowed staff members and teachers to carry concealed weapons. Thweatt said he knows of some other district that have since adopted similar policies, but declined to name them. …Board members approved the measure because the district is at least 20 minutes from the nearest station of the Wilbarger County Sheriff’s Department. …Thweatt said he wanted to minimize casualties that could quickly increase while waiting for deputies. He didn’t want a plan where you “lock yourself in your closet and hope that an intruder won’t hurt you.” …There has not been an incident on his campus, and Thweatt doesn’t expect one.

The last part of the excerpt tells you all you need to know. There have been no mass shootings and the superintendent doesn’t expect any.

Some leftists doubtlessly will fret that a crazy teacher might bring a gun to school and start shooting people. What they apparently don’t understand, though, is that a crazy teacher already has that ability. Or, as we tragically witnessed in Connecticut, some other nutjob can come to a school and engage in a killing spree.

But in Harrold, Texas, at least there are people who can shoot back.

I know I would rather send my kids to school in Harrold than to someplace that advertises itself as a gun-free zone.

And if this poster is correct, Israel puts common sense above anti-gun ideology.

You can enjoy some humor about so-called gun-free zones by clicking here.

And since this post is about Texans and the second amendment, this bit of humor is always popular. As is this example of a Texas police exam and this story of Texas, California, and a coyote.

Speaking of California, let’s engage in a bit more mockery of the Golden State.

P.S. Let’s allow Alabama to make a cameo appearance in this post since this image is entertaining in more  ways than one.

(h/t: Ben Domenech, via Erick Erickson)

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The Texas Police Exam

Okay, maybe this isn’t really an exam in Texas, but it is reasonably funny in a dark and non-PC way.

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A young Texan grew up wanting to be a lawman. He grew up big, 6′ 2”, strong as a longhorn, and fast as a mustang. He could shoot a bottle cap tossed in the air at 40 paces.

When he finally came of age, he applied to where he had only dreamed of working: the West Texas Sheriff’s Department. After a series of tests and interviews, the Chief Deputy finally called him into his office for the young man’s last interview.

The Chief Deputy said, “You’re a big strong kid and you can really shoot. So far your qualifications all look good, but we have what you might call an ‘attitude suitability test’ that you must take before you can be accepted. We just don’t let anyone carry our badge, son.”

Then, sliding a service pistol and a box of ammo across the desk, the Chief said, “Take this pistol and shoot everything on this list”:

* six illegal aliens,

* six lawyers,

* six meth dealers,

* six Muslim extremists,

* six Democrats,

* and a rabbit.

“Why the rabbit?” queried the applicant.

“Great attitude. You pass.” said the Chief Deputy. “When can you start?”

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Texas, California, and the Tale of the Coyote

I’ve already had a couple of blog posts commenting on how Texas is kicking California’s you-know-what. Being a fiscal policy person, I always point to California’s punitive state income tax as an example of bad policy and highlight the absence of any income tax in Texas to explain the success of that state.

But sometimes it’s just culture and attitude. Here’s a joke comparing the two states, but it’s based on something that actually happened in Texas.

CALIFORNIA: The Governor of  California is jogging with his dog along a nature trail. A coyote jumps  out, bites the Governor and attacks his dog.

1. The Governor starts to intervene, but reflects  upon the movie “Bambi” and then realizes he should stop; the coyote is  only doing what is natural.

2. He calls animal control. Animal Control  captures the coyote and bills the State $200 testing it for diseases and $500  for relocating it.

3. He calls a veterinarian. The vet collects  the dead dog and bills the State $200 for testing it for diseases.

4. The Governor goes to hospital and spends  $3,500 getting checked for diseases from the coyote and on getting his  bite wound bandaged.

5. The running trail gets shut down for  6 months while Fish & Game conducts a $100,000 survey to  make sure the area is free of dangerous animals.

6. The Governor spends $50,000 in state funds to  implement a “coyote awareness” program for residents of the area.

7. The State Legislature spends $2 million  to study how to better treat rabies and how to permanently  eradicate the  disease throughout the world.

8. The Governor’s security agent is  fired for not stopping the attack somehow and for letting the  Governor attempt to intervene.

9. Additional cost to State of California:  $75,000 to hire and train a new security agent with additional special  training re: the nature of coyotes.

10. PETA protests the coyote’s  relocation and files suit against the State.

TEXAS: The Governor of Texas is  jogging with his dog along a nature trail. A Coyote jumps out, bites  the Governor’s leather boot, and attacks his dog.

1. The Governor shoots the coyote with his State-issued  pistol and keeps jogging. The Governor has spent $0.50 on a .45 ACP  hollow
point cartridge.

2. The buzzards eat the dead coyote.

And that, boys and girls, is why California is  broke………..And, more importantly, why too much government  doesn’t work.

Addendum: Welcome Instapundit readers. A few people in the comments are looking for a response to Krugman’s attack on Texas. Kevin Williamson at National Review provides the answer.

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Is California the Greece of America?

This video from the folks at Reason TV shows how excessive government – especially a bloated government workforce – is debilitating California’s economy. The comparisons with Texas are a powerful example of why good policies are important.

 

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Texas Thumps California

Texas has a small state government and no state income tax. California has a bloated state government and a punitive state income tax. Here’s a simple quiz: Which state is doing better? The answer is obvious, as Michael Barone explains:

Democratic majorities have obediently done the bidding of public employee unions to the point that state government faces huge budget deficits. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s attempt to reduce the power of the Democratic-union combine with referenda was defeated in 2005 when public employee unions poured $100 million — all originally extracted from taxpayers — into effective TV ads. Californians have responded by leaving the state. From 2000 to 2009, the Census Bureau estimates, there has been a domestic outflow of 1,509,000 people from California — almost as many as the number of immigrants coming in. Population growth has not been above the national average and, for the first time in history, it appears that California will gain no House seats or electoral votes from the reapportionment following the 2010 census. Texas is a different story. Texas has low taxes — and no state income taxes — and a much smaller government. Its legislature meets for only 90 days every two years, compared with California’s year-round legislature. Its fiscal condition is sound. Public employee unions are weak or nonexistent. But Texas seems to be delivering superior services. Its teachers are paid less than California’s. But its test scores — and with a demographically similar school population — are higher. California’s once fabled freeways are crumbling and crowded. Texas has built gleaming new highways in metro Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth. In the meantime, Texas’ economy has been booming. Unemployment rates have been below the national average for more than a decade, as companies small and large generate new jobs. And Americans have been voting for Texas with their feet. From 2000 to 2009, some 848,000 people moved from other parts of the United States to Texas, about the same number as moved in from abroad. That inflow has continued in 2008-09, in which 143,000 Americans moved into Texas, more than double the number in any other state, at the same time as 98,000 were moving out of California. Texas is on the way to gain four additional House seats and electoral votes in the 2010 reapportionment.

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