Now that the state unemployment numbers are all in, it appears that states that are still growing jobs have a disturbing tendency toward lower tax burdens and greater worker freedoms.
"In employment growth — an indicator of which states are likely to restore jobs most quickly — Wyoming also showed the healthiest signs, with a 2.2 percent increase in employment since last year. Four other states — Texas (1.5 percent), Oklahoma (1 percent), Alaska (.9 percent) and South Dakota (.8 percent) — recorded an increase in the number of people employed."
Only four states, according to stateline.org, show an increase in employment in the latest survey. Of those, Texas, Alaska, and South Dakota, have far lower state and local tax burdens than we have in Kentucky.
And again, of the four states with positive job growth, Texas, Oklahoma, and South Dakota do not require forced unionism against their workers like Kentucky does.
Kentucky has tried for long enough to prove the efficacy of high-tax policies and those hostile to worker freedoms. It just hasn't worked. And given the definitive losses to our state treasury for paying union wages on public construction projects, what case can be made for not giving a shot to some strategies that are more likely to actually work?
1 comment:
Until you get some grasp of proportion in taxation, you have no more credibility in criticizing any state program that hires additional workers.
But being conservative, proportion has to do with fairness, and that's the last thing conservatives want from a tax system. Conservatives loathe and detest American values.
Alexander Hamilton advocated a proportional tax system in Federalist Paper 12. He wrote:
"The ability of a country to pay taxes must always be proportioned, in a great degree, to the quantity of money in circulation, and to the celerity with which it circulates. Commerce, contributing to both these objects, must of necessity render the payment of taxes easier, and facilitate the requisite supplies to the treasury."
But alas, what John Stuart Mill said about conservatives, still rings true today. He said:
"Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives."
BPB seems to be awash in a sea of the latter category.
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