{"id":5868,"date":"2009-11-03T07:00:26","date_gmt":"2009-11-03T12:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=5868"},"modified":"2009-11-02T21:52:07","modified_gmt":"2009-11-03T02:52:07","slug":"the-titanic-didnt-have-enough-lifeboats-either","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/?p=5868","title":{"rendered":"The Titanic Didn’t Have Enough Lifeboats Either"},"content":{"rendered":"

Taxpayers vote with their feet. They’re hoofin’ it to <\/em>Texas…and from <\/em>California; two diametrically opposed microcosms of political ideology:<\/p>\n

What is surprising is the growing evidence<\/a> that the low-benefit, low-tax alternative succeeds not only on its own terms but also according to the criteria used by defenders of high benefits and high taxes. Whatever theoretical claims are made for imposing high taxes to provide generous government benefits, the practical reality is that these public goods are, increasingly, neither public nor good: their beneficiaries are mostly the service providers themselves, and their quality is poor.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

while California and Texas are comparable in terms of sheer numbers, their demographic paths are diverging. Before 1990, both states grew much faster than the rest of the country. Since then, only Texas has continued to do so. While its share of the nation\u2019s population has steadily increased, from 6.8 percent in 1990 to 7.9 percent in 2007, California\u2019s has barely budged, from 12 percent to 12.1 percent.<\/p>\n

Unpacking the numbers is even more revealing\u2014and, for California, disturbing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What’s so special about California?<\/p>\n

California and it\u2019s economy<\/a> are faced with the fallout of massive over-spending, immigration, health care and arbitrary and burdensome emissions regulations \u2013 which have failed by the way. Sound familiar?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What’s so special about Texas?<\/p>\n

between 1998 and 2007, the states without an individual income tax \u201ccreated 89 percent more jobs and had 32 percent faster personal income growth\u201d than the states with the highest individual income-tax rates. California\u2019s tax and regulatory policies, the report predicts, \u201cwill continue to sap its economic vitality,\u201d while Texas\u2019s \u201cpro-growth\u201d policies will help it \u201cmaintain its superior economic performance well into the future.\u201d The clear implication is that California should become more like Texas.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

…and so should the US. With Texans hinting at secession, is the Lone Star state the lifeboat for the other 49? Might it be time to jump in?<\/p>\n

Nawwww. Let’s see how the Vikings finish the season first.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Taxpayers vote with their feet. They’re hoofin’ it to Texas…and from California; two diametrically opposed microcosms of political ideology: What is surprising is the growing evidence that the low-benefit, low-tax alternative succeeds not only on its own terms but also according to the criteria used by defenders of high benefits and high taxes. Whatever theoretical […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":228,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-capitalism-v-socialism","category-conservatism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/228"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5868"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5868\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5885,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5868\/revisions\/5885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}