Another GOP economic theory goes up in smoke

The new slew o GOP governors have all cut axes for their wealthiest citizens based on teh assumption that lower taxes in a neighboring state will lure these people to move out of state. I always thought this was bullshit and just another excuse to lover taxes on the wealthy a core GOP value, and to hand out favors for campaign contributions.

An 18 year old study proves I'm right but that didn't stop Gov. Chris Christie from doing just that.

"You're not going to fix this tax situation by continuing to load more and more taxes onto people who have both the ability to leave the state and the inclination to leave the state if they feel as if they are being treated unfairly."

Other states followed suite but two new studies have exploded that myth.

"Taxes [have] essentially no impact on causing people to leave a state," says Jeff Thompson, of the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

In a study tracking 18 years of migration between states in New England, Thompson found that people mostly move for job-related reasons. They go where the jobs are, regardless of whether it's low-tax New Hampshire or higher-tax Maine.

"If you're living in a state and your tax bill goes up by a thousand or two thousand dollars," he says, "that ... pales in comparison to what it would cost you to actually move. And it might not be worth it to have to be farther away from your job, farther away from your friends."

That makes a lot more sense than trickle anywhere but down economics.