The American Legislative Exchange Council released their “Rich States, Poor States” report last week and shocker—mostly Democratic-run states are a disaster concerning economic performance and competitiveness. ALEC included the top and bottom ten states in the press release announcing the 10th edition of the report. NTK Network broke down who controls what in the respective state legislatures of these low performing states as well.
#41: Oregon (Dems control the legislature and governor’s office)#42: Maine (Dems split control of the legislature with Republicans)
#43: Hawaii (Dems control the legislature and governor’s office)
#44: Illinois (Dems control the legislature)
#45: Minnesota (Dems control the governor’s office)
#46: Connecticut (Dems control the legislature and governor’s office)
#47: California (Dems control the legislature and governor’s office)
#48: New Jersey (Dems control the legislature)
#49: Vermont (Dems control the legislature)
#50: New York (Dems control the legislature and governor’s office)
You can peruse all the data on income tax, property tax burdens, sales taxes, death taxes, the minimum wage, how many public employees there are per 10,000 in state population, whether it’s a right to work state, and much more. You can also compare states within these criteria as well.
Some states, like New Jersey and Illinois, are not shockers. While they have Republican governors, Democrats dominate the legislatures. In New Jersey, Christie touted pension reform, though the Garden State has a long way to go, with ALEC noting that it’s actually underfunded by $235 billion. On taxes, the organization pretty much took Christie to the woodshed:
On tax policy, the governor praised Republicans and Democrats for reducing the state sales tax and increasing the exclusions for the state’s estate tax (to be eliminated completely in 2018); but he failed to mention the tax cut savings are almost entirely offset by the enormous 23-cent per gallon increase in the gas tax. This year’s sales tax reduction of 0.125 percent will save a whopping $1.25 on a $1,000 purchase; meanwhile, the gas tax hike will cost twice this much on a single 11 gallon fill-up. And while he commended the implementation of a property tax cap during his tenure (projected to save taxpayers $520 million), he failed to mention that New Jersey’s property tax burden is the worst in the nation. Capping the tax does not alter this harsh reality.
I guess we shouldn’t have been surprised as to who is the bottom ten in the country. Nevertheless, there’s troves of data here. Have fun.
