Forum Post: New Yorkers Leave Like East Germans Fled Communism
Posted 11 years ago on June 1, 2012, 8:09 a.m. EST by quatloo55
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New Yorkers Leave Like East Germans Fled Communism Investors Business Daily
Posted 05/30/2012 06:42 PM ET
Big Government: New York thinks of itself as the place to be, but its high taxes have made it a place to flee. Those who have escaped the Empire State tax man could fill a major city.
From 1949 to 1961, more than 2.6 million of East Germany's 17 million population escaped to West Berlin or West Germany, a hemorrhage of humanity that led the Communists to construct the infamous Berlin Wall in 1961.
The state of New York, with about 19.5 million people, has no known plans to erect concrete barriers or barbed wire fences. But from 2000 to 2010 it suffered an exodus of some 3.4 million New Yorkers — nearly a million more people than in Germany's post-war experience and more than that of any other state.
And the outflow hasn't stopped. The income loss for the state is $45.6 billion, the Tax Foundation says.
Granted, it's not just one-way traffic. New York has plenty of immigration from abroad; its more than 4 million foreign-born residents give it the second-biggest immigrant population in America.
So net outward migration is about 1.3 million.
Most New York refugees are in sunny, zero-income-tax Florida. The Sunshine State, along with its rays, offer big relief from New York's state tax on income, which starts at almost 6.5% and reaches nearly 9% for the overly successful.
On top of that are high sales taxes that approach 9% in New York City, but 7% in some other areas. mp3Subscribe to the IBD Editorials Podcast
New Yorkers who leave an estate of more than $1 million to their loved ones get hit with a state death tax reaching 16%, bringing billions into state coffers.
Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo admits that "working families can't afford to pay the ever-increasing tax burden ... and this state has no future if it is going to be the tax capital of the nation."
But like a long line of New York politicians from both parties, what he dangles is relief from the state's high property taxes, which are tied to state government spending mandates on localities — a longtime shell game showing no real signs of ending.
Cuomo's predecessor, Eliot Spitzer (aka the Emperor's Club escort agency's Client No. 9), actually attained the governorship as a tax crusader of sorts, suing H&R Block for $250 million on fraud charges as state attorney general while simultaneously seeking the governor's mansion.
But Spitzer didn't, and Cuomo hasn't, threatened New York's status as "tax capital of the nation" with any substantive reform that changes the status quo.
Like those formerly enslaved behind the Iron Curtain, New Yorkers' choice is a wrenching one: either escape by leaving home, or spend years waiting for a liberator to arrive.
I would think taxes are the least of your worry's, being illegally searched walking down the street, bans on soda pop, bans on smoking outside, this does sound like communist dictatorship but paying for the privileged seems small in comparison to subjecting yourself to the humiliation
It's not the income taxes in NY... its the property taxes that are making everyone flee. I am an ex-NYer.
Property taxes in upstate ny are incredibly high, its out of control. And there is NO liberator coming anytime soon.
Its the local county governments that are doing this. I was paying over $10K a year in property tax in Long Island... thats like carrying a 2nd mortgage. You need to be making over $100K a year just to be in the lower middle class there. I love NY, and I hated to leave... maybe someday they will get their act together. I bet the author doesn't even live there, its not the income taxes.
The correct answer is it's everything put together. It's not always even an individual's choice. Sometimes businesses throw up their hands and move out of that gawd awful state and their employees follow them.
They're a bunch of control freaks in NY and they're driving everyone out.
NEW YORK.... THE NEXT UTOPIA !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Personally, I love the state and the city, wish I could have afforded to stay. I have very little bad to say about life there.
Don't you mean ghost town?
Or if we don't make some major changes and we keep losing ice cap and glaciers.
Soon to be fish town?
So China can pump it out left and right in the smokestacks, but somehow we're a doomed fishtown if we don't put ourselves at a competitive disadvantage and put all of our people out work???
NO - go green and sell them the American made products to make them green producers.
This is where we should be going: Green Energy we have the technology we just need to use it. This is what I am talking about. A clean future to be implemented NOW!
http://www.hopewellproject.org/
http://ecat.com/
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/ff_new_nukes/all/1
FuelCell Energy http://apps1.eere.energy.gov/news/progress_alerts.cfm/pa_id=600
Uh, all the solar panels and parts for the wind turbines are being made in China
(or didn't you get the memo?)
Who said anything about wind turbines and solar panels?
They are a helpful green tech but they are not the answer.
Apparently you did not bother to explore the links.
More the Fool - You.
DO YOU AGREE that we must end the corporate-funded two-party tyranny the ruling elite have used to control Americans and America for generations?
YES, or NO?
Just answered that question on another thread. Read it.
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