by WorldTribune Staff, January 14, 2018
The top three states for out-migration between July 2016 and July 2017 were New York, California and Illinois – three deep Blue States with high taxes and high regulation.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, New York lost 190,508 residents to other states during the year ending last July 1, bringing the state’s total domestic migration change since 2010 to a net loss of more than 1 million people.
Helping drive the trend in New York, analyst Paul Driessen noted, is the “full frontal audacity” of Gov. Andrew Cuomo, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, “and their union and pressure group comrades in arms. Their hypocrisy, fraud, and tyranny are boundless, especially on fiscal, energy, and climate change issues.”
California lost 138,000 residents during the same time period, second only to New York.
Illinois lost so many residents, 115,000, that it dropped from the fifth- to the sixth-most populous state in 2017, losing its previous spot to Pennsylvania.
The Democrats who run these states “need bogeymen, scapegoats, distractions – to deflect attention away from this lunacy,” Driessen, senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow, wrote in an op-ed titled “Blatant Blue State hypocrisy”.
Amid the seventh year of a “New York is open for business” advertising campaign that has spent $354 million thus far, Cuomo and de Blasio “are presiding over tax and regulatory regimes, mountains of debt, intransigent public sector unions, anti-nuclear, anti-fossil fuel energy policies that are anything but business friendly – and press conferences that promise more of the same for state businesses, taxpayers, and pensioners,” Driessen wrote.
Wall Street Journal columnist William McGurn noted that Cuomo and his fellow warriors against Trump and Republicans will do almost anything – “except address the root problem by lowering their taxes and spending. Because to do so would require taking on the public unions that drive much of state spending and debt, and are the key constituency of the 21st-century Democratic Party.”
In New Jersey, “unions resist any reforms to their payrolls or pensions just as fiercely,” Driessen noted.
The NJ pension system is already $90-billion short of what it needs to pay future benefits, according to the Manhattan Institute.
Connecticut is in the same boat.
“Meanwhile,” Driessen wrote, “electricity prices continue to climb: In New York 18.8 cents per kilowatt-hour for families, 15.0 cents for the businesses the state is so eager to attract, and 6.2 cents for its few industries. In Jersey, 14.7, 11.4 and 9.6 cents, respectively. In Connecticut, a whopping 21.3, 16.8 and 13.5 cents per kWh!”
Electricity rates “pummel California businesses, families, factories, farms, hospitals, and schools,” Driessen wrote.
Meanwhile, “fires and floods have destroyed nearly 9,000 homes, killed over 60 people, and devastated entire forests and neighborhoods” in the Golden State.
California’s forests “have 129 million dead trees, and enough dry brush to fill LA Memorial Coliseum several times,” Driessen wrote. “But state regulators, environmentalists, and judges make it impossible to remove any. It’s more ‘natural,’ ‘sustainable,’ and ‘climate friendly’ to have it erupt in 1,400 to 2,200 degree F infernos.”
In contrast to the Blue State “fiscal and environmental train wrecks” are the results thus far of the “deregulation, tax reduction, pro-fossil fuel policies” of President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans, Driessen wrote.
Those polices have resulted in “new jobs, higher wages, nice bonuses, a coming repatriation of trillions of now overseas dollars to fuel new investment and innovation, the lowest black unemployment since recordkeeping began, and the DJIA stock market reaching a record high of 25,575 January 11, following a record 92 closing highs since President Trump was elected,” Driessen wrote.
“Compare that to Nobel Prize winning Blue economist Paul Krugman’s dire prediction after the election: the markets will crash and ‘never’ recover, amid a long ‘global recession.’ Meanwhile, multi-multi-millionaire Nancy Pelosi belittled the $1,000 bonuses as ‘crumbs.’ Tell that to families bringing in $25,000 to $50,000 a year. The House Minority Leader is completely out of touch with average families.”
In New York, “Cuomo proposes to transform personal income taxes into corporate payroll taxes, or even charitable deductions,” Driessen noted. “California is trying the same ploy. Friendly IRS auditors will be busy shutting that down.”
In the “new leftist-fascist world order … partisans, politicians, and professors shut down debate, impose uniform thinking, decree corporate policy, and even punish intolerable contrarian views with physical violence when those views threaten their ‘safe spaces,’ ” Driessen wrote.
While Blue State “officials, unions, and activists may be delighted with how their agenda is ‘progressing,’ ” Driessen concluded, “the rest of the United States … and world … are not so happy.”
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