Patrick Ruffini unpacks the real conclusion to be drawn from this week’s census and reapportionment numbers:
[T]his week’s numbers were the most ringing endorsement of the Republican governing model since Rudy Giuliani towered over the vested interests in New York City. Not only did the South and West win — which liberals will dismiss as a function of weather — but low tax states consistently beat high tax states. Not only did conservative states beat liberal states, most tellingly, the winners were almost to a man conservatively governed.
Consider this striking fact unearthed by political strategist (and former Giuliani adviser) Ken Kurson, posted on Facebook:
- Avg tax rate in states gaining a Congressional seat: 2.8%
- Avg tax rate in states losing a Congressional seat: 6.05%
People vote with their feet.
And not entirely because of the weather, although that’ll be what the left attributes the reapportionment to. Minnesota – which held onto both its eighth house seat for another ten years by the skin of its teeth (perhaps thanks to the fact it held on to fiscal sanity by the same margin) – grew 4%, well off the national average. North Dakota – which has low taxes and is actively cutting the ones they have – grew by 5%, and income-tax-free South Dakota grew even faster, leading the region.
Ruffini (with emphasis added):
This finding is relevant to top marginal tax rates, which unlike property or sales taxes more prevalent in redder states punish creation rather than consumption, but the basic finding runs deep throughout the numbers. The big population winners did not just happen to red states with nice weather. They also had a deeply embedded Republican governing model. Consider who governed in the big population-gaining states this year.
- Texas +4 (10 years of Republican governors, 0 Democrat)
- Florida +2 (10 Republican, 0 Democrat)
- Nevada +1 (10 Republican, 0 Democrat)
- Utah +1 (10 Republican, 0 Democrat)
- South Carolina +1 (8 Republican, 2 Democrat)
- Georgia +1 (8 Republican, 2 Democrat)
- Arizona +1 (2 Republican, 8 Democrat)
- Washington +1 (0 Republican, 10 Democrat)
Collectively, that’s 58 years of Republican governance to 22 years of Democratic governance in the states gaining Congressional seats. And Washington State’s impressive record — alone among true blue states — likely had more to do with the little matter that it lacks an income tax, and an initiative this year to impose one was beat back by 2-to-1.
Ruffini notes that the major left-strangled metropolitan areas – the New Yorks and Bostons and Los Angeleses – continued to show some growth; there are benefits to having a large, established commercial sector (or whatever’s left of it) and a throbbing creative class.
But the reapportionment shows that they only go so far.
Fifty more years of coastal-liberal strangulation and the Democrats just might be a third party yet after all.
Washington and Arizona had the mostly Democrat governors, but remember, much of their population growth is due to refugees from very liberal California.
Will SITD be starting a Spanish language version? Si habla?
Will SITD be starting a Spanish language version?
Hmoob tsuv luaav.
Not to confuse the issue with facts, but if global warming is real, then wouldn’t people be moving out of the south and west because of the weather?
Would Al Gore spend $8.75 million on a seaside mansion if he really believed in global warming?
It has a pool.
Al sold himself some extra carbon credits to offset his enormous carbon footprint. It was the least he could do.
Did you know he won a Nobel Peace Prize?
U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez today posted a letter to Santa Claus on his Huffington Post blog, expressing concern that Santa may have to leave the North Pole because of melting Arctic sea ice.
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/12/sen_menendez_writes_to_santa_a.html
Writing an imaginary creature about an imaginary problem . . .
These people have no sense of irony.
“Not to confuse the issue with facts, but if global warming is real, then wouldn’t people be moving out of the south and west because of the weather?”
Not really. Perception is everything these days…and people on the right by and large don’t acknowledge global warming as being “real.” That perception won’t change until there is a “real” pocketbook impact…and maybe not even then.
It’s probably safe to assume that if people are intentionally moving into areas that are governed conservatively, they are on the right side of the political/religious/social spectrum.
Terry,
Gore probably has good flood insurance.
It’s probably safe to assume that if people are intentionally moving into areas that are governed conservatively, they are on the right side of the political/religious/social spectrum.
Well, maybe and maybe not.
It’s probably safer to assume that if people are momving into areas where there are jobs, away from areas that are losing jobs, they are on the “I need to feed my family” side of the various spectra.
Hopefully the locals do their best to have their politics rub off on the newbies; hopefully the newbies learn from the locals what actually works. We wouldn’t want Texas to go the way of Vermont and Colorado and Washington, where good sensiible local conservatives got overwhelmed by refugees from Boston and California – who brought their noxious politics with ’em.
I am not certain if you are serious or not re Gore’s flood insurance, but people don’t buy $8.75 million dollar homes because they need a place to hang their hat. It’s an investment. If it was not an investment he would have leased the place.
It would be enlightening to see how the AGW boosters spend their money vs. how they think the public’s money (eg yours and mine) should be spent, what with this AGW disaster looming ever closer (bu never quite imminent). People — many of them, I am sure, believers in AGW — are still buying and selling low-lying NYC real estate for a premium price.