Here's a good one from Allen Clifton re red vs blue states. I'm not surprised that the GOP wants to eliminate the Department of Education. They would prefer that people don't even bother with "education." Take some vocational education, instead, because we'll still need plumbers and electricians. Reading books (usually) makes you smarter (Rush Limbaugh and similar books excepted). How are they gonna control you if you are well-educated? Rich people, like Elon Musk for instance, like Texas because there is no income tax, and if you're rich, Texas will fall all over itself to make you wanna move here. Tax abatements, tax incentives, tax cuts, all for the wealthy. California already got sick of Musk's shit and basically booted him out.
Here are a couple of facts conservatives need to understand about “red states” and why some of their brags — such as “it’s more affordable” and “more people, especially rich people and big businesses, are moving here” — aren’t necessarily the flex they think they are.
For starters, many “red states” are more affordable because most people don’t want to live there. There’s a reason there’s a direct correlation between population density and the cost of living. I live in Texas, and in major cities like Houston, Dallas, and Austin, it’s a lot more expensive to live there than it is in Brady or Abilene — because more people live in those major cities.
Trust me, if Mobile, Alabama, had the same population density as, say, Los Angeles or New York City, it would be a heck of a lot more expensive to live there.
It’s also more affordable because most “red states” are poorer, have shorter life expectancies, higher infant mortality rates, much lower wages, and tend to rank near the bottom when it comes to quality of education.
Which, again, is a big part of the reason fewer people live there — thus making it more affordable.
As for this big brag that a lot of businesses and rich people are leaving “blue states” to come to “red states,” yeah — they’re doing it to exploit tax breaks that ultimately in the long run make life worse for the vast majority of people living there.
When states like Texas or Florida give massive tax breaks to businesses to move there, who do you think ultimately ends up paying more?
Regular citizens, via higher property taxes, sales taxes, and other local taxes.
When rich people come to a “red state” to claim a “home,” even though they’re probably rarely ever there, so they don’t have to pay state income taxes in places like California or New York, who do you think that screws over?
All the regular people in the state who are now likely paying more because rich people are essentially using these “red states” as tax havens to save themselves a lot of money while driving up prices for everyone else.
Do you think these billionaires really want to live in these red states? If so, why didn’t they start their businesses there instead of in states like California, New York, Washington, and other “blue states”?
Notice it wasn’t until they made it big and built their wealth empires that they found their way to these “red states” to protect their money.
And again, the ordinary citizens of those states are the ones who get screwed.
Are “blue states” perfect? Of course not. No place is. They all need work.
But these rich people and big businesses aren’t leaving states run by Democrats because they genuinely want to move to Republican-run states. They’re going there because the GOP is doing at the local level what it’s been doing at the national level: passing legislation that benefits the top 1% at the expense of everyone else.
For example, look at recent pushes in states like Texas and Florida to eliminate property taxes. Sounds great, right?
Except when you discover that, at least here in Texas, the plan to offset that lost revenue is by increasing sales taxes. So the rich get massive tax breaks on their multi-million-dollar homes, while these states replace that revenue with a regressive consumption tax that will almost always lead to the vast majority of people shouldering more of the tax burden.
Always remember this: any tax system based heavily on consumption taxes (typically sales taxes) is highly regressive and favors the rich while placing a larger burden on the other 99% of people.
That said, this boasting I see from Republicans and citizens of states run by the GOP because they’ve seen population increases — especially from wealthy individuals and big businesses relocating there — isn’t the flex they think it is.
That just tells me your state and local governments are selling out the citizens who actually live in these places by passing tax policies and legislation that benefit the wealthy and big businesses at the expense of everyone else.
No comments:
Post a Comment