Tax Matters
This is Art Laffer, writing in The Wall Street Journal:
Over the past 50 years, 11 states have introduced state income taxes… Each and every state that introduced an income tax saw its share of total U.S. output decline. Some of the states, like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio, have become fiscal basket cases…even West Virginia, which was poor to begin with, got relatively poorer after adopting a state income tax.
So now that both Bill Sr. and Bill Jr. have made their piles, he wants to increase income taxes and reduce property taxes. He seems perfectly rational to me.
I don’t believe there is any law that forbids Bill Sr. from giving all his money to the government.
But for normal people who make a nice living (after years of losses and/or minimal income, after working 80 hours a week for the last 10 years, risking financial disaster to build a nice, profitable business), Bill Sr. wants to force them to give more to the government. Typical Democrat…
The states that have not suffered despite state income taxes likely are living off years of accumulated capital. New York City may do fine given 300 years of built up wealth. Places nearby (think: upstate New York) have not thrived. I do not believe NYC would be a large hub of commerce if the punitive taxes were in place before it grew large and wealthy.
What does Bill Gates care if the economy of Washington state goes south. He can always pick up and move.