Feel free to move there anytime

Rob Scofield over at NC Policy Watch once again professes his love of high taxes and big government. Following his laughable assertion that two of this nation’s most heavily regulated and/or subsidized industries – health insurance and cable – are "largely private institutions," he then lets loose with this doozy:

The fact remains that the vast majority of taxes paid by modern Americans go toward the provision of essential services that dramatically improve the quality of life in a way that would be simply impossible if everything were left to the, dog-eat-dog, Wild West model of society favored by the market fundamentalists. In this sense, most taxes that Americans pay are no different than their mortgage (or rent) payments or their food bill – except that they’re often more cost-efficient.

Wow, his fear of free markets is almost palpable. It’s amazing how every time they describe government services, the word "essential" immediately precedes it. I think they must program their computers to automatically insert that. In his view, adults in this country are incapable of deciding what will improve their quality of life. Those decisions must be made by elitists and bureaucrats who, of course, know what’s best for you better than you do. If he has any credibility left by the end of the above paragraph, I think it’s lost when he claims that paying taxes in return for government run monopolies….er services is "more cost-efficient" than privately agreed upon transactions such as buying food.

Furthermore, he turns green with envy as he displays some data comparing Connecticut with North Carolina:

Connecticut, there are a large number of categories in which those same people have a heckuva’ lot more “freedom” than North Carolinians. Here are just a few from the Census Bureau:

Median Income: Connecticut – $60,941; North Carolina – $40,729

Population Living in Poverty: Conn. 8.3%; N.C. – 15.1%I

nfant Mortality: Connecticut – Conn. 5.4 per 1,000 live births; N.C. – 8.2

Violent Crime: Connecticut – 275 per 100,000 people; N.C. – 468

Persons over 25 with a Bachelor’s Degree: Conn. – 36.9%; N.C. – 25.4%

Public School Teacher Average Salaries: Conn. – $57,337; N.C. – $43,211

Number of Physicians: Conn. – 363 per 100,000 people; N.C. 253

Traffic Fatalities: Conn. – 0.92 per 100 million vehicle miles; N.C. – 1.62    

Pity the poor fools.

This is his proof positive that folks in Connecticut have a higher standard of living and that they are perfectly happy paying one of the highest tax rates in the nation.

There is one bit of data from the census that is conspicuous by its absence – what do the people of Connecticut themselves feel about living there? Apparently, they just don’t know how lucky they should be paying such high taxes and receiving such great "essential services," because they have been fleeing the state in large numbers (see page 6 of report). But I’m sure the fact that Connecticut has been one of the largest losers in terms of domestic migration and also sports one of the nation’s highest tax burdens is mere coincidence in Scofield’s world.