The Tax Rate Increases Reduce Economic Growth;

The Income Effects In An Economy Always Sum To Zero.

If You Look At The Performance Of The Zero-income-tax-rate States And The Highest-income-tax-rate States, I Believe A Large Amount Of Their Difference Is Due To Taxes. Not Only Is It True Of The Last Decade, But I Took These Numbers Back 50 Years. And, There's Not One Year In The Last 50 Where The Zero-income-tax-rate States Have Not Outperformed The Highest-income-tax-rate States.

There Are Lots Of Other Things That Affect State Growth Besides State Taxes. However, The Reason I Look At Taxes Is Because These Are Policy Variables That Can Be Changed By State Governments In Order To Get Better Results Than They Otherwise Had.

What I'm Not Saying Is That All Government Spending Is Bad. It's Not - Far, Far From It, But There Is No Free Lunch, As A Former Colleague Of Mine Used To Say. There Is No Public Tooth Fairy. Father Christmas Does Not Work On The Treasury Staff This Year. You Can Never Bail Someone Out Of Trouble Without Putting Someone Else Into Trouble.

The Tax Rate Increases Reduce Economic Growth; They Shrink The Pie; They Cause More Poverty, More Despair, More Unemployment, Which Are All Things Government Is Trying To Alleviate With Spending.