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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (139981)	6/29/2010 6:15:54 PM
From: Katelew	Respond to of 541958

It would be interesting to see a comparison of total state taxes as a proportion of something like statewide income. Something that controlled for population, compared across states. It would be interesting. If you come across something like this, please post it. As for where does it go, the cost of living is quite high so compensation needs to be higher. True, but the cost of living in a place usually reflects compensation levels. So you tend to see higher wages paid in areas of high cost of living. And then higher wages means higher tax revenues to the state govt. with which to pay those police and firemen, etc. So theoretically everything balances out. It may be that things have gotten way out of balance in NJ. Considering the cost of living there, if you guys have people trying to live on minimum wage, I would say that things are out of balance. Even in my low cost area, virtually no one pays minimum wage. Wages tend to start in the 8.50-9.00 range which is still low. I know I keep asking about NJ. I'm interested in the budget problems in CA, NJ, and IL because they are somewhat the canaries in the coal mine. Not trying to make some political point.