There are clear policy divides in America if you look at the way certain states are governed.
Economist Dan Mitchell wrote a piece earlier this month comparing and contrasting the policies of states such as Florida, Tennessee, and Texas with those of states such as California, Illinois, and New York.
The former are generally seen as vibrant Republican states with policies that make housing affordable and businesses easier to operate, while the latter are viewed as oppressive and difficult to earn a basic living in. As a result, people are voting with their feet and heading towards red states. It’s a matter of public policy at the end of the day.
Mitchell succinctly explains the tax factor behind people’s decision to leave blue states such as California:
There’s lots of data showing a clear relationship between the tax burden and migration patterns. Presumably for two reasons:
-
People don’t like being overtaxed and thus move from high-tax states to low-tax states.
-
More jobs are created in low-tax states, and people move for those employment opportunities.
During the Wuhan virus pandemic, the differences between states in policy-making has become stark. Nihal Krishan of the Washington Examiner.
States run by Republican governors on average have economically outperformed states run by Democratic governors in recent months. …Overall, Democratic-run states, particularly those in the Northeast and Midwest, had larger contractions in gross domestic product than Republican-run states in the Plains and the South, according to the latest state GDP data for the second quarter of 2020, released by the Commerce Department on Friday. Of the 20 states with the smallest decrease in state GDP, 13 were run by Republican governors, while the bottom 25 states with the highest decrease in state GDP were predominantly Democratic-run states. …Republican-controlled Utah had the second-lowest unemployment rate in the country in August at 4.1%, and the second-lowest GDP drop, at just over 18% in the second quarter. Nevada, run by Democrats, had the highest unemployment rate, at 13.2%. It was closely followed by Democratic-run Rhode Island, 12.8%, and New York, 12.5%.
It’s clear that public policy has an impact regarding how certain states tend to receive migrants, while others witness people leave their states. Conservatives should make this a major theme during the 2020 campaigns and future efforts. The fact is that Democrat-run cities and states have turned into cesspools and people must know about the root causes.
Hopefully, new arrivals to red states don’t bring the very policies that ruined their states in the first place.
