Trump’s SALT Cap Fuels a Wealth Exodus from High-Tax States
- Thread starter dealmaker
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Exactly how does one vote again the second, or any other, amendment?
No longer watch Charlton Heston movies.
You're right about the end effect, but I'd urge you to think about exactly why taxes are higher in the "high tax states" versus the "low tax states". NY and IL, to give two examples, produced a significant percentage of the nation's GDP over the last 100 years. That gave them a massive tail of deferred obligations that came with that GDP production in the form of pensions, superfund sites, and aging infrastructure. NYC, for example, has been educating a millions students a year for the last hundred years, and as a result has a tail of teachers who are getting pensions for their time doing that. Same with firefighters and policeman and all manner of public service types getting pensions for their part in supporting that GDP production engine from say 1950 to today.
Florida in 1950 was rural farmland contributing somewhere between jack and shit to our national GDP. They had very few teachers, firefighters, and cops in 1950 relative to the population today. So they have very few retired teachers, firefighters and cops from 1950 who are drawing pensions supported by today's taxpayers in those states (just because you have no income tax doesn't mean the state run for free, btw!) compared to the states that built the country to where it is today. Very few superfund sites to clean up. Brand new infrastructure. And to make matters worse, many of those folks from say NY moved with their pensions to FL, so not only are NY taxpayers supporting them but the money is going to the FL economy.
Great deal for FL now. Absolutely not sustainable to naively believe this will last forever if they could only leave the true conservatives in place and don't try to change gun control laws (what does that have to do with tax burden again?). In 50 years FL will have the same pension, pollution, and infrastructure issues that NY has today. Not because of the political party in power, but because that's just the math of what happens when you are a mature state with a stable population rather than a rapidly growing one. All I ask is you think about that for a minute.
I'll also ask you to think about the implications of what you just said. Inherent in your statement is the concept that a person is entitled only entitled to full democracy if they give up their freedom of movement and association and stay in one place here in the United States. I'm retired military, was transferred a dozen times around the country. I'm what I'm sure you'd call "liberal", although in the rest of the world I'd probably be considered "center right". You're basically telling me that if I chose to move to FL after I retired, then I shouldn't have the right to avail myself to the full democratic process to do what I believe is best to reduce gun violence, protect the environment, and ensure workers are treated fairly in the state I now reside? Simply because I moved there, from a liberal area? You're saying the rednecks who were born there get democracy by virtue of where in the United States they were born, but my vote "is the problem" because by virtue of spending my entire adult life up to that point serving my country I "wasn't from there"? Oh, you didn't mean me, you meant the bad NY liberals. But your definition in fact included me and everyone like me. So what does that say for your definition?
In my world it's never a "problem" for people to vote to make the place they live look the way they want it to regardless of how long they've lived there. To the contrary it is what we in fact call "democracy". That you think it is "the problem" is intensely anti-democratic and anti-American, not to mention deeply insulting to anyone who sacrificed with moves to places they didn't really want to live every 2 or 3 years for 20+ years in your service and now you're telling are "the problem" if they try to exercise their democratic rights in the place they finally have a choice to settle in. Again, stop and think a little about the implications of what you're saying. It is possible to be so politically strident that you end up advocating for the opposite of what you ostensibly believe in. Anyone who complains about "outsiders coming and in and changing my town" pretty firmly falls into that camp.
we don't have data on that do we? you'd think those who flee socialism will not vote socialism
I don't think they understand the connection. They just think to themselves, "Why are my CA property taxes so high?" (And why does my neighbor who has lived here for 40 years only pay 1/7th of my property taxes for a piece of real estate of approximately similar market value). Then they go on to pass every bond measure on the ballot thinking that, "oh, libraries, schools, and roads are good...we need more of those".
Never mentioned anything about gun control, but you have a point on the pension obligations. But how much of that is due to grossly-excessive pay and pension benefits? For education, look at teacher pay vs. performance: (https://www.usatoday.com/story/mone...-where-teachers-paid-most-and-least/34964975/)
New York
- Median salary, school teachers: $78,576
- Median salary, all workers: $43,690 (6th highest)
- Per pupil expenditure: $18,665 (3rd highest)
- High school graduation rate: 79.2 percent (13th lowest)
- Cost of living: 15.3 percent greater than national avg. (2nd highest)
- Median salary, school teachers: $48,134
- Median salary, all workers: $33,420 (9th lowest)
- Per pupil expenditure: $9,737 (11th lowest)
- High school graduation rate: 77.9 percent (9th lowest)
- Cost of living: 0.5 percent less than national avg. (16th highest)
- Median salary, school teachers: $56,536
- Median salary, all workers: $36,170 (24th lowest)
- Per pupil expenditure: $8,485 (4th lowest)
- High school graduation rate: 89.0 percent (4th highest)
- Cost of living: 3.2 percent less than national avg. (24th highest)
And of course California and New York are famous for paying pension benefits in excess of a quarter million per year (https://www.surfsantamonica.com/ssm..._California_Cities_with_Biggest_Pensions.html). Keep in mind that these people do not have medical or engineering degrees. You don't even need a college degree to be a police commissioner and it's pretty hard to get fired from a public sector job. Also, many of them retire at 50. Even the salaries while working were high: "In 2015, five San Jose police officers each made more than $400,000." (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/02/us/california-today-police-firefighter-pay.html) You can't find that kind of pay in the private sector without the need for a college degree.
Going back to education...with all the GDP coming out of New York and California, one would expect that there are a lot of smart and motivated people there. Well Texas graduation rate is 4th highest in the country and NY is 13th lowest. So New Yorkers are simply not getting what they paid for which is another reason why people are fleeing the state.
I've lived around the country including ultra high cost areas like the SF Bay area and very low cost areas like FL. One prevailing truth I've found is that most folks who have never lived in a truly high cost area like SF or NYC not only don't grasp the cost of living difference but seem utterly incapable of grasping it. It quantifiable costs 115% more to live in NY than FL on average (https://www.bestplaces.net/cost-of-living/florida-ny/new-york-ny/placeholder). The delta in teachers salaries you quoted is 83%. So you actually demonstrated that NY teachers are effectively getting paid substantially less than NY teachers!
I'd also encourage you to actually read beyond the "retired cop makes half a million" headlines. The average retired cop makes nowhere near that, and the average cop pension delta is probably very much in line with the cost of living delta you so helpfully demonstrated is so misleading. For whatever reason many local jurisdictions have poorly written retirement rules that allow your police retirement to be based on X% of your last year's salary and includes overtime in that salary. So a handful of people manipulate that by piling on massive overtime their last year....and you read the headline. That's not a systemic "liberal" problem, that's just poor local law drafting. Also, as a military pilot who retired in his early 40's I'm gonna have to take umbrage at your armchair criticism of those of us in physically demanding jobs where our life literally depends on our fitness and reflexes retiring at 50. Sorry, that's just a bullshit criticism if you haven't ever put your life on the line on a regular basis in your job.
And sorry, the second amendment comment was direct at @gaussian not you.
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State by state (or region by region) comparisons are for the most part meaningless. A Sheriff Deputy in Greene County, NY makes significantly less than an NYPD police officer. Ya know risk reward. More people (and lot more wealth) equals more crime relatively speaking so more to protect against in the city.
But as I have seen in 29 years living down here in South Florida growth does not just bring positives. Used to be said Florida is where old people and their parents live. Now we are more a mixture of ages and income categories which means more and more schools, hospitals and social services. No getting round it. At some point taxes will increase. Just will.
But as I have seen in 29 years living down here in South Florida growth does not just bring positives. Used to be said Florida is where old people and their parents live
. Now we are more a mixture of ages and income categories which means more and more schools, hospitals and social services. No getting round it. At some point taxes will increase. Just will.Very true, although it's still actually mostly a cost of living delta versus an actual delta in expenditures. FL has a budget of $91B and a pop of 21M, so about $4,333 in state budget per person. NY State has a budget of $175B and a pop of 19.5M, so about $8,974 per person, or 107% greater than FL. As pointed out above, it's 115% more expensive to live in NY than FL. Obviously the delta in cost to run a government is somewhat different than the cost to live, but it's going to be roughly similar especially since personnel costs make up much of budget costs. So end of the day, NY isn't actually spending more on an effective basis per person than FL, and of course the myth of "no taxes in FL" is exactly that, a myth by those who don't understand the difference between an income tax specifically and taxes more generally.State by state (or region by region) comparisons are for the most part meaningless. A Sheriff Deputy in Greene County, NY makes significantly less than an NYPD police officer. Ya know risk reward. More people (and lot more wealth) equals more crime relatively speaking so more to protect against in the city.
But as I have seen in 29 years living down here in South Florida growth does not just bring positives. Used to be said Florida is where old people and their parents live
So I think eventually cost of living in FL will approach New York at which point effective tax load may actually be higher than NY because they're already effectively spending the same amount as NY without the pension tail.