So, I’m roaming the country side and have seen some things that confirm my biases. (Imagine that!) Specifically, I’ve long been annoyed by lawmakers who speak as if tax policy is the alpha and omega of economic development. A drive from Rapid City, SD through Wyoming to Boulder, Colorado emphatically demonstrates that isn’t so.
The lightly taxed economic deserts of Wyoming stand in stark contrast to the heavily taxed, booming People’s Republic of Boulder and surrounding areas.
Jobs require people making and doing things for other people. People need things and can make and do things. Taxes influence the people; but first you need to attract the people and otherwise make it some place they want to live.
Great Points. I lived west of the Twin Cities in Minnesota from 1999 to 2003. Minnesota has a high tax, high quality of life economy. The Dakotas and rural Iowa were virtually empty. The Dakotas have a boom in oil and gas, and jobs are plentiful. But that will not last. Williston will return to 6,000 people in 10 years after the drilling has ended and the leases are being pumped.
Initially, people moved to areas where there were food and subsistence opportunities. The flood into boom areas, but booms always bust. When certain levels of comfort and economic security are attached, they move to places that are nice to live. All of the tax incentives in the world will not bring IBM’s World headquarters to Bismark, ND or Lordsburg, NM.
Factories move where there are people that will work for its wages are in good supply. Corporate headquarters move to places the execs want to live and there are great public or private schools available for their superkids. Kind of rules out Willison, ND or Espanpola, NM.
But… but… tyranny! Like don’t they make you smoke pot in Boulder? That’s not freedom!
Sounds like a fun trip!
I’m going to hazard a guess that just enough Wyoming residents prefer the sparse populations and low taxes. They want to be left alone with their ranches and fortunes. The lack of economic development is probably on purpose.
There is some truth to this. Many farming communities are depressed because few in the community will actively promote economic development.
Iowa and Indiana were just as agrarian at one time. One went one way, one went the other, probably begining in the 1960s.
You mean that Mike Pence and the right wing legislators might be wrong? Horrors! Who can you trust if you can’t trust Mike???
Like I read in another blog the other day, Indiana is like Wyoming without the scenery or the natural resources. It’s also without some basic necessities for a good society, like well-funded schools and a decent infrastructure, and training for the incoming businesses will consist of the ability to say, “You want fries with that?”. So it looks like we are in tight competition with the Mohave Desert.
No, Stuart, at least the Mohave Desert blooms every 20 or so years when unusually heavy (almost any) rain falls.
So, your saying we shouldn’t send our kids to that bastion of intellectual stimulation known as the University of Wyoming? Shucks.
Pretty sure it’s “Mojave”…FWIW.
Yeah, likely. It is probably a spanish word.
Spellcheck didn’t find it, and neither did I. Thanks.
You omit the fact, Doug, that Boulder is home to the University of Colorado, a slew of defense contractors and large government installations. The jobs in Boulder simply followed the flow of a huge infusion of government spending in the area. The level of taxation is irrelevant to Boulder’s largest employers.
Boulder’s large university is probably larger and more prestigious because of the higher rates of taxation in Dakota and the proximity of Denver. The proximity of say, Cheyene or Bismark would not like have the same salutory effect.
Taxes by you things. If you don’t want these things there are always other places to live.
I guess that would at least suggest that government employment and spending is an effective stimulus. Place is booming.
That is literally one of the dumbest arguments I’ve ever seen. Literally.
Your economic analysis has over a thousand errors so it’s pointless to begin a correction.
Aw, try it little man. Give us your top ten.
Give him a break, Carlito. His head is so full of conspiracies and assorted (and sordid) stuff that he has to work just to remember what his parole officer told him.
Ok, I will declare a truce. I hear that Freedom is up for Trusty.
I can’t see how the level of taxation would be “irrelevant” to a defense contractor. Obviously, such companies benefit from government spending, but they are private companies whose employees would pay lower taxes if they were located in Wyoming rather than in Colorado.
Further, as Doug notes below, even if high quality jobs follow government spending such as public universities, doesn’t that further undercut the typical Republican position that low taxes are the most important factor in economic development?
Defense contractors typically locate their operations to suit DOD needs and requirements, not their own. Colorado, for a number of reasons, is a strategically better location for defense installations than Indiana.
Gary, we all know that fascists begin with their conclusions and back into their premises.
They’re after political power, not being seen as intellectuals.
Some areas of the country will never become economic giants due to mostly how they grew decades ago. As the population moved from the east to the west, they obviously went through areas like Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado. The weather on the west coast sounds a lot more habitable than the weather along the Front Range or High Plains. While not everyone avoided these reasons like the plague, there is likely a reason why Colorado, specifically Denver, grew larger than Cheyenne. In the 1880s and 1890s, Denver saw a year of 650% growth and 200% growth, while Cheyenne only saw 140% and 240%. With people will come taxation and other things. High taxation didn’t bring more people to the Denver area of the Front Range. My guess is that it had more to do with maybe the number of roads in the area, the number of rail lines, and possibly the slightly better weather in the Denver area. Whatever the reason, a person’s time is no longer consumed by cutting wood for heat and cooking, feeding animals for food or milk, but pretty much doing nothing of real productivity for the most part. A lot of people don’t even want to cook for themselves if they can afford not to. People want to eat what others cook, watch plays and movies and what not, participate in games and other activities. Unless one is a diehard outdoor type, who loves camping, hiking, or river rafting, then if one is going to move chances are they won’t pick the Front Range or High Plains.
.
I think Indiana is different, as our state is actually fairly close to numerous population centers (Chicago, Detroit area, Columbus, Cincinnati, Louisville, Nashville, and St. Louis). As a person who on the fathers side is at least fourth, if not fifth generation Hoosier, and the mothers side part at least third generation, moving wasn’t something I saw a lot of. All but one person in my entire extended Indy based family moved away during my youth. However, as more and more people are willing to move for jobs, and almost have to move, it will become important for states and cities to do what they can to attract business. If high taxation is a non-factor, then why did the IL gov. roll over for Sears and CME? And while Caterpillar made comments about moving the HQ out-of-state, the worry seems to be more about Caterpillar moving future production out-of-state. Then we have Cook Medical, which is claiming they shelved plans for expansion because of Obamacare taxes on medical devices. Claiming higher taxation will bring Cheyenne or Rapid City Fortune 500 companies and draw more people just doesn’t make sense. It is about as silly as saying a Superbowl does the same thing for the host city.
The medical device tax is a pass-through tax that will be paid by payors, to a great extent. I don’t buy the idea that sales tax will decrease sales. It may slightly decrease profits as device suppliers may choose to internalize so of that tax, but they do not have to.
Not exactly the best case for causality, Doug. Look at the suburban sprawl of Indianapolis, for example. Why did Hamilton County experience explosive growth in the past two decades? It wasn’t because the taxes were higher than Indianapolis. It isn’t because the soil suddenly supports bedroom communities better than corn & soybeans.
Huge populations reject high taxes with regularity, (along with high crime rates, awful public schools, decaying infrastructure, etc.) while trying to retain proximity to amenities and attractions. Suburban sprawl wouldn’t exist otherwise. Cities can retain more population without having to bottom out first and see pockets of gentrification, by lowering the tax rate, attacking crime, improving the schools, etc. But for most folks, it’s hella easier to move, and city councils are super-convinced of the extraordinary value of their services, and lowering taxes is about the last thing they would dream of doing.
And, we’re not even bringing the weather into the picture. People will put up with an awful lot in order to live in Southern California, for instance. Wyoming? South Dakota? Let’s note that you are there in the last week of May, and not the second week of January. Or even the third week of April. Hell- the Beartooth Pass just opened last week. (Eternal gratitude for the tip on that several years ago!)
Yes, Mike, of course, you’re correct, but why does this need to be explained to someone who deigns himself worthy of publishing a blog and presenting his opinions in the company of thoughtful men?
This blog should be shelved until its author gains the education, perspective and requisite peer review to present legitimate perspectives to the public. At a minimum, respectable blogs, such as Ogden’s should remove links to it.
Freedom of speech only applies to people you agree with, huh?
If you don’t like it, don’t visit. You are not being forced to spend your time/bandwidth to come visit a blog you do not care for.
If you believe you are providing a public service by trolling D. Masson on a continual basis, you are sorely mistaken. You’re just being a jerk.
Back from your weekend jail stay, eh freedom?
To some extent, Mike, I think cities deal with free rider problems with respect to suburbs. Suburbs often grow (I speculate) because their proximity to the city allows their residents to take advantage of the features of a dense population while avoiding a lot of the problems of population density.
Correlation isn’t causation. Boulder has great weather and scenery. More importantly, it benefits from an artificial net inflow of zillions of dollars because of the university.
(btw Indiana does has “well-funded schools”. IPS spends as much per year per student as it costs to attend a good private school. The new Plainfield High has immensely expensive baseball facilities…which btw are seldom used, and cannot be used by the public…so there’s a great investment. Per pupil expenditures do not predict student success.)
Per pupil spending would predict student success if the same demographic of student were provided differing levels of funding.
Not ready to talk specifics about the amount of school funding, but we do know that student success can be predicted by a number of factors, and per pupil expenditure is a huge factor. One of the most reliable predictors is poverty. When you run the data from our state student database, the correlation is .70 between student success (passing both math and reading) and student poverty (% of kids on free lunch). That correlation is as strong as the relationship between IQ and student success, and accounts for around 49% of the variance.
Actually, Eugene, IPS spends MORE per pupil than any private school in the county: IPS $18k and change, as published last week. Park Tudor? $17.7k (grade school) St Richard’s? $14k. Per pupil expenditures clearly do not predict student success — or else IPS would be the best system in the state.
Cost ratios are a better predictor, perhaps. IPS is way top-heavy on administration costs (at the Central Office). Hopefully, that might improve under a new administration.
Like anything else, look where the money is going. In a district like IPS, they don’t have a bunch of well-dressed upper middle class kids ready to learn, where most of their resources can go to teachers and books, and where teaching is a positive challenge. IPS, like most big city schools, has to deal with all kinds of problems, ranging from school safety to massive remediation and a huge special education budget. Then the kids come poorly prepared, ill-clothed, hungry, having survived a sleepless night with parents who have a whole range of problems. It’s easy to write off all expenses to “administration”, when expenses are as complicated as the problems. The more diverse the population must be served, the wider and deeper the difficulties that need to be addressed. And that is on top of the crazy politics and corruption you read about. My guess is that if any one of the posters could spend one day in some of the schools, they would come back pretty depressed and just glad they had a decent home.
Well stated, Stuart. I watched District Nine over the weekend and am still looking at our species from a lower level perspective.
Actually, IPS -is- (or was) very top-heavy under its last Super (Eugene White, Ed.D.) The rest, social workers, special ed, title aides, I wasn’t criticizing. I have spent time in an IPS classroom as my wife is an IPS teacher. So, I know more than a little bit about it (as I have to hear about it every day). I couldn’t do it.
We live in a dysfunctional society where folks are always looking to place blame when some institution of the society goes awry. The politicians, who have that down pat, beat on “the schools”, and the most dysfunctional politicians think that the best way to improve conditions is for the beatings to continue until the moral improves. But when schools fail that is only a symptom of a failing community (local and state governments included) which means that every stakeholder plays a part in it. The solution is for everyone to accept their part in the play and take responsibility or the community and the schools will continue to fail. That’s the way systems work. Now, when you see the schools from the inside, you understand that doing good “in the belly of the beast” is a never-ending job. You soon discover what suffering and desperation means, and come to understand that the ones who enjoy beating on the schools fail to appreciate their value, the value of the ones who work in them, the children who attend them or the parents who place their hopes and dreams on them. The schools are just pawns to the demagogues.