Taxing votes away

In the latest issue of Forbes, Steve Forbes, makes an interesting observation in his Fact and Comment section regarding state taxes and it affects.

Mr. Forbes points out how states with high taxes like Vermont, New York and Maine are crushing growth while low tax states like New Hampshire, Texas and South Carolina are stealing people and businesses away.

He states, as I have many times, that the proof is in our country’s census that takes place every ten years. Mr. Forbes says, “since 1950 New York State has lost 14 congressional seats, and in the next census it will lose several more.” The reason for the loss in seats is because people are fleeing for the more tax friendly confines of the South and Midwest. With the 2010 census right around the corner the shift will only get worse with even California as Forbes puts it ready to see “tens of thousands of native-born Americans moving out of the state instead of moving in. For the first time since becoming a state 155 years ago, California will not gain, and may actually lose, congressional representation…”

For Democrats this shift in congressional representation has been disastrous as it’s allowed and will continue to allow Republicans to pick up seats in the House as the shift has been completely from states heavily Democrat to states heavily Republican.

It continues to amaze me how despite the numbers, Democrats still just can’t get away from the idea of high taxes. Maybe the 2010 census will be the final hit over the head that does it for them when they see Republican states like Texas gain even more seats.

With New York set to get a new governor and spending by the state growing more and more - the economist this week in an article about Governor Pataki’s battle to reign in our drunken sailors of a state senate and fight over a ruling by NY Supreme Court justice Leland DeGrasse to increase school spending, who as the Economist notes “does not have to answer to taxpayers” and thinks New York is a “neverland of unlimited resources” - it seems our representatives have yet to catch on to why New York continues to loose representation. The question is will they ever?