Do you live in a death-spiral state?
Two factors determine whether a state makes this elite list of fiscal hellholes. The first is whether it has more takers than makers. A taker is someone who draws money from the government, as an employee, pensioner or welfare recipient. A maker is someone gainfully employed in the private sector.
Let us give those takers the benefit of our sympathy and assume that every single one of them is a deserving soul. This person is either genuinely needy or a dedicated public servant or the recipient of a well-earned pension.
But what happens when these needy types outnumber the providers? Taxes get too high. Prosperous citizens decamp. Employers decamp. That just makes matters worse for the taxpayers left behind.
Let’s say you are a software entrepreneur with 100 on your payroll. If you stay in San Francisco, your crew will support 139 takers. In Texas, they would support only 82. Austin looks very attractive.
Blowback
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Ohio deserves all the bad things that are headed its way. They’re all a bunch of tax feeders, looking for the next bailout. California without the nice weather, good riddance.
rndmusrnm on November 26, 2012 at 9:04 PM
Yup, Ohio is doomed and I have decamped.
You cannot vote yourself a prosperous state, nor a good standard of living.
Minimum wage laws, outrageous pensions, and welfare plans that grant a better than 12 dollar an hour lifestyle are the death of the republic.
Let it burn.
harlekwin15 on November 26, 2012 at 9:09 PM
Soon it will be reminiscent of “Escape from New York.”
ProfShadow on November 26, 2012 at 9:10 PM
Funny WI would have been on that list if not for Walker and his reforms.
Liberals do not CARE if it is not taken from them. Once they got skin in the game the tone changes.
watertown on November 26, 2012 at 9:12 PM
All those smug lists showing how blue state taxes supposedly “carry” red states fail to account for things like military bases, national parks, and other things a state has when it has the room for it. Blue states are nothing more than the suburbs of big, blue cities.
Sekhmet on November 26, 2012 at 9:15 PM
I gave it up in 2008 – it’s for sure over now. Welcome to Ayn Rand’s World!
Who is John Galt on November 26, 2012 at 9:26 PM
It does bring up an interesting point, if the Blue are the mega rich successful states and we in the red are the drain on the Blue’s greatness why are they so angry at the secessionists?
That is of course unless they are aware that unfettered by blue regulatory fiat on petrochems and union leaning rules that the red will bury their economic performance within 20 years….
Let it burn.
harlekwin15 on November 26, 2012 at 9:26 PM
It does bring up an interesting point, if the Blue are the mega rich successful states and we in the red are the drain on the Blue’s greatness why are they so angry at the “divorce the red and blue” agitators no matter how misguided?
That is of course unless they are aware that unfettered by blue regulatory fiat on petrochems and union leaning rules that the red will bury their economic performance within 20 years….
Let it burn.
harlekwin15 on November 26, 2012 at 9:27 PM
Its not a Red/Blue State debate about makers and takers… It’s Red/Blue COUNTIES you have to look at.
brewcrew67 on November 26, 2012 at 9:29 PM
I’m in California, so double-flush my ass:
http://capoliticalnews.com/2012/07/09/ca-holds-one-fourth-of-nations-2-2-trillion-in-unfunded-pension-liabilities/
Shaughnessy on November 26, 2012 at 9:45 PM
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blatantblue on November 26, 2012 at 9:45 PM
What about all the “makers” who are 100% dependent on the takers? You know, the huge banking, science, insurance, medical, mortgage, and military contractors who are nominall “private sector”, but are in fact supported entirely by government largess or whose only client is the government. Somehow all those crony companies are going to survive once their sugar daddy goes under? No, they are going to be as a bust as everybody else dependent upon the sugar daddy. Just because they are corporations rather than individuals doesn’t make them any less “takers”.
Corporate personhood ftw. Takers.
Daikokuco on November 26, 2012 at 9:52 PM
obama’s America is a death-spiral state nation.
Pork-Chop on November 26, 2012 at 10:01 PM
obama’s America is a death-spiral nation.
Pork-Chop on November 26, 2012 at 10:01 PM
Actually, you moron, that is exactly what they ARE accounting for. The fact that their taxes are being used to provide “DURR thousands of local jerbz, we cain’t close this hurr militarah baaase!” as a form of welfare to some useless Southern state where the locals are too lazy and stupid to create industry. All those “smug lists” are exactly as they appear. The taker states are the most rightwing and southern. The ones that contribute WAY less in taxes than they receive in federal welfare money. In the form of direct welfare, AND “jobz” welfare, like NASA or military bases. They are TAKERS. Embrace your takerdom, parasite.
Daikokuco on November 26, 2012 at 10:02 PM
Yeah, the 3 employers in Hawaii (the gov/military, tourism, and tropical agriculture) will soon be on a great exodus to Alabama or whatever the latest fundangelical model state is.
Daikokuco on November 26, 2012 at 10:16 PM
Right, and the red states subsidize the blue states through the deductibility of state and local taxes on your federal returns. Higher state income taxes in the blue states make that a disparate giveaway, another entitlement for the wealthy in the blue states. That should end.
How much more will the rest of us have to shell out just for California’s new wealth tax? Why should we all be writing checks to the high-tax states?
slickwillie2001 on November 26, 2012 at 10:31 PM
Dagnabbit! Wish these Forbes guys would quit usin’ this impenetrable kind of esoteric financial jargon!!
Ladysmith CulchaVulcha on November 26, 2012 at 10:39 PM
The numbers include government purchases. So if a company produces something valuable, the government pays the company, and that counts against the state it is in. To be a a real leech metric, they would have to subtract out government spending that goes towards real production. But that probably spoils the narrative, so no one mentions that.
pedestrian on November 26, 2012 at 10:49 PM
Der Cuckoo also forgets there is a decided difference between the person who sells or provides the government with a service or good and an outright leech.
Mr. Cuckoo you’re more than welcome to go get rocketed for 52,000 total remuneration anytime as is OBAMAFO! lady.
I am repeatedly told that that wage for an e-7 with 15 years is “too high” despite the fact a civil servant who does not get rocketed for a living and makes more is “not overpaid and cannot be cut lest the Republic die.”
If Barry Soetoro is Captain America I misunderstood something about the founding.
harlekwin15 on November 26, 2012 at 11:01 PM
Military bases have to exist somewhere, and they won’t fit in some overpriced suburb of a Blue State. And far from the paeans to Nature expressed by Greenies in Blue states, Blues have crowded and overbuilt their states to where there is nothing around which it is worth making a decent national park. So go worship Gaia while you think your food comes from the grocery store, KooKoo.
Sekhmet on November 27, 2012 at 12:13 AM
This is such a load of bunk. Municipal bonds are a pretty good investment across the board and the associated risk has little to do with the state’s fiscal position. Entrepreneurs set up in San Francisco and the Bay Area because those firms need access to the people who have skills which are difficult to find elsewhere along with VC firms smart enough to provide investment to those firms. All that despite San Francisco and the Bay Area being a hell hole of dependency. According to this hack you are idiotic investing in property in CA or NY but where I am rent has skyrocketed and property values are catching up already. CA remains very competitive in terms of start ups compared to other places. CA has the same number of per capita start ups as Texas. The difference is how successful they are. CA’s fiscal woes have been news for a long long time yet it still generated 60% of the US IPO activity last quarter and local venture cap firms are doing excellent business despite that being a relatively slow quarter.
Oh please the Tax Foundation produces a pretty rigorous study which does take that into account and even after that CA is a net contributor to the US economy while southern states with the exception of Texas aren’t.
lexhamfox on November 27, 2012 at 12:18 AM
I don’t suppose you want to discuss the demographic realities of those federal jobs in the south…
DrMagnolias on November 27, 2012 at 5:08 AM
What … only eleven?
How many others are at the tipping point?
To think that the USA is being dragged down by the Me-Me-States.
kregg on November 27, 2012 at 8:16 AM