Robert Reich is Wrong Again
In reality, the high cost of living in CA more than counteracts their higher wages. According to Google, the median income in San Diego is $63,000 [2], which seems pretty good, especially compared to the Dallas $56,498 [3]. But according to a cost of living calculator [4], it costs ~50% more to achieve the same standard of living in San Diego. So in order for an average Dallas worker to have the same standard of living in San Diego, they would need to actually earn $84,747, more than $20,000 more than the average. So in reality, your average Dallas worker has a much better standard of living the your average San Diego worker.
This doesn’t even consider the fact that CA is broke. They’re $400 billion in debt [5]. So even their high taxes and higher incomes can’t manage to fund the massive government expenditures required to enforce all those “important” regulations. Texas isn’t doing much better on the debt front. They apparently ow ~$338 billion. But at least they aren’t passing so much of that burden on to their citizens. At least people can afford to live there.
You can’t tax yourself into prosperity. As a professional economist, Robert Reich should no that by now. And he should know how to adjust for things like cost of living when trying to make such bold claims as “California is thriving because of taxes and regulations”. They’re not. And even if they were, it would be in spite of, not because of taxes.
Logical Liberty 