Contrary To GOP Rhetoric, Low-Tax States Have Worse Economic Growth

[eridani]

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/02/28/1654621/low-tax-states-no-growth/?mobile=nc

Republicans love to claim that low-tax states such as Texas enjoy a disproportionate amount of economic success, while higher-tax states like California are economic basket cases. Republican governors in several states are using that rationale to propose gutting their state income taxes (and, in many instances, replacing them with regressive sales taxes).

But a new report from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy shows that so-called “high tax states” are actually experiencing more growth and less decline in income than states that are supposedly super-conducive to economic expansion:

In reality, states that levy personal income taxes, including the states with the highest top rates, have seen more economic growth per capita and less decline in their median income level over the last ten years than the nine states that do not tax income. Unemployment rates have been nearly identical across states with and without income taxes.

[AndyA]

1. Facts and data: the two things the GOP hates as much as anything

Fortunately for the GOP, most "conservative" voters are low information voters, even if they think they're highly informed. The problem is, they get their information from sources that have been documented as liars, and they accept what they hear from those sources as factual.

[jtuck004]

2. 'Course, it helps to drill down into the details...even higher taxes can't overcome elected

officials who think income means helping out the rentiers instead of investing in the people.

No. 1 worst metro area for jobs this fall (2012): Spokane, Wash., here.