Posted 12/30/14, 06:01 PM ET
Demographics: New York state suffered its latest
economic/demographic black eye when the Census Bureau announced last week that
Florida has now surpassed the Empire State in population. New York now ranks
fourth in population at 19.7 million. Florida has just under 20 million, Texas
27 million and California 38 million.
New York's fall from grace has been long in the making and
precipitous. As recently as 2000, New York had 3 million more residents than
Florida. And in the 2000 Census, Texas was only slightly ahead of New York. Now
the Lone Star State has roughly 7 million more people. This would be the
equivalent of nearly everyone in the city of New York moving
to Texas.
In his book "How Money Walks," Travis Brown of the
Show-Me Institute shows that 1.5 million more native-born Americans left New
York than came into the state over the last decade (2003-12). Over the same
period, a million more
native-born Americans moved to Florida.
It seems that all those TV ads by the New York economic
development authorities telling businesses to come to the Empire State to avoid
high taxes aren't even passing the laugh test.
Liberals like to say that these migration patterns are a
result of Florida's sunshine. And sure, that explains a lot of the movement,
especially as some 80 million baby boomers get older. But as far as we know,
Florida has always had nicer weather than New York. That hasn't changed.
What has changed is New York's leftward policy drift. The
state recently raised its highest tax rate on the rich to 13.3%, while Florida
has zero income tax. New York has the second-highest corporate tax;
Florida's is well below average. Florida is a right-to-work
state; New York is a forced-union state. New York has banned fracking, so its
energy resources mostly stay in the ground.
If liberalism really worked, New York would be a worker's
paradise a place where Americans would be scrambling to get to. Florida would
be the backwater.
The fact that the reverse is true should have the pols in
Albany, starting with Gov. Andrew Cuomo, scratching their heads and wondering
why.
If the policies don't change, the future isn't very bright
for New Yorkers. The state legislative group ALEC ranks New York dead last
among the 50 states in its economic outlook, based on a wide range of policy
variables. That's why every time you think things can't get any worse in New
York they do.
Source:<http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/123014-732625-low-tax-florida-passes-high-tax-new-york-in-population.htm#disqus_thread>
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