North Carolina is losing it’s edge. This eye-opening state-by-state index by Art Laffer and Steven Moore illustrates convincingly the close correlation between state policy and economic prosperity.
Years of one party rule mean NC is moving toward the Jennifer Granholm/European socialist model that has left Michigan and Old Europe in economic stagnation for years now. Nearly double-digit unemployment, outward migration and capital flight mark the states with policies hostile to entrepreneurship and economic freedom.
The more North Carolina gets into the upper marginal tax rates, continues to overcompensate by giving away corporate welfare (unsustainable), and spends like drunken sailors, the faller we will slip on this index and the further we will sink into the economic malaise that puts us at #19 – fair to middling – but poor next to our southern neighbors (Tennessee 5, Virginia 4, and Georgia 8).
-Max Borders
Hey, hey….go easy on Michigan. Well, actually – Granholm and company deserve it.
As a refugee of the Great Lakes State, I can confirm your accusations. (By the way, people in NC should note that politicians in Detroit and MI are using their population decrease as an excuse to raise taxes. Of course, in this state lawmakers say a population increase is a reason to raise taxes. Gullible people in both states dare not question the validity of either claim.)
Furthermore, I must quibble with your statement that the NC government “spends like drunken sailors.” To paraphrase Reagan, that’s an insult to drunken sailors because at least the sailors are spending their own money.