Fundamentals of Political Economy
“Fair’s Got Nothin’ To Do With It”**
Poverty is a curse
This report hit the feed today courtesy of California Governor Gavin Newsom pointing out, rightly, that it’s false to label the Golden State as “high tax”. You have to add for whom. Tax rates are higher in both Texas and Florida than CA for average income and poor families.
For the rich, oh yeah, much much lower.
ITEP’s report above is an important reference to bookmark after reading. I didn’t find it all that surprising that states with overall political economies favoring the Haves would bite them less than those favoring the Have Nots.
I also shouldn’t have been surprised by the overall regressive shape of the contour when you chart it out state by state and income band by income band simultaneously. Chart 1 gives the BLUF. Chart 12 is equally depressing, with nominally blue (WA) or purple (PA) states driving the regressivity.
Still … some of these numbers are shocking: top 1% in Florida pay 2.7% while the bottom 40% pay 11.5%?? No wonder Trump changed his legal residence.
Granted, the data and overall picture probably change when you add in federal taxes.
Granted, with our federalized model, where states are “laboratories of democracy” there’s no constitutional principle that I see that’s violated by states differing in how to deal with the Haves vs Have Nots economic (and so taxation) distribution curves. If Florida wants to be a sanctuary state for billionaires on its body politic buying into a notion of trickle-down (whether vague or theologically, ideologically or academically justified), who are we in California to object.
Yes, we can howl at carpetbaggers like Elon Musk striking gold here, then doing the oligarch scoot with their bag to the land of the Longhorns.
Fair’s got nothin’ to do with it. If we don’t like the consequences of our tax codes, we can use the power of the ballot box to change them.
** The actual meme level quote from Clint Eastwood’s Western masterpiece Unforgiven (1992) was “Deserve’s got nothin’ to do with it” … hey, editorial license.
