VA vs MD vis a vis GDP

It is amazing to me how things which I consider positive values are often portrayed as failings by others. For instance, this is the opening of a column in the Richmond Times Dispatch:

Maryland's approval of an expanded smoking ban and a so-called living wage - both rejected in Virginia - is a reminder that the neighboring states are politically worlds apart.

"Maryland has been able to maintain a broader view of the public interest, what government can both reflect and be a catalyst," said J. Douglas Koelemay, an information-technology lobbyist who works in both states.

"Virginia sometimes sinks back to glorifying the individual and characterizing the government as a burden or oppressive force."

Maryland is my home State, to which my friends can attest I am inordinately attached. My family came to Maryland with the colony ships Ark and Dove in 1634, and have been there ever since, so I can claim as much regional heritage and pride as anyone in the United States, but I can't say I view my State taking a "broader view of the public interest, what government can both reflect and be a catalyst," as a positive thing. Andrew Roth at the Club for Growth fired back at this dismissal of "glorifying the individual" with some statistics.

Virginia has a higher GDP per capita than Maryland. Virginia's unemployment rate is also better, 3% vs. 3.6%. And perhaps most importantly, Virginia's population growth rate has been higher, 8% vs. 6%, since 2000 with Maryland actually experiencing negative net migration in 2006.

So, as much as it pains me to say it, I must give credit to VA for being the freer State. Apparently others want to give them the blame for the same thing.

Unfair Taxation

I have posted before on the percentage of the tax burden paid by the top earners in the US (top 50% of earners pay 97%, and the top 5% pay almost 60% of the taxes). Investor's Business Daily conducted a poll asking people what they thought of their own tax burden. Not surprisingly, everyone thought that they pay too much, even those who don't pay at all.

The average family in America pays about $5,405 a year. But if you make less than $20,000, according to Congress' Joint Economic Committee, you not only don't pay any taxes on average, the government gives you money. The tax burden for those earners between $20,000 to $30,000 is also small — $520 on average.

Thus, it's surprising to see in our own national poll that 58% of those with less than $30,000 in income think they "pay too much" in taxes, while just 11% say they pay "too little." Especially since just 26% of the same income group say those earning $100,000 or more "pay too much."

I know I pay too much! What about you?

Boomerang Seniors

USA Today is reporting on the phenomenon of Boomerang Seniors - people who move to places such as Florida when they reach retirement, only to move elsewhere (usually their place of origin or where they have family) upon losing their health (which was still quite good when they were 60-something and moved to golfing or other active-lifestyle communities), their spouse, or their savings.

One of the main points of the article is that places to which elderly are returning are just now figuring out how to handle these demographic dynamics of having younger, healthier seniors move away and be replaced by older seniors who require a greater amount of care and services - especially health related.