Texas Gov. Rick Perry has just wrapped up a trip to California, where he’s been running radio spots with a clear-cut message:
“Building a business is tough, but I hear building a business in California is next to impossible,” the governor says in these ads. “See why low taxes, sensible regulations and a fair legal system are just the thing to get your business moving to Texas.”
Though Perry returned to Austin yesterday, we’re hoping he might consider bringing his argument about the connection between low taxes and job creation to a place that could really use it: New York.
Perry’s pitch out west was pretty simple: His state has no income tax, while California now has the nation’s highest combined marginal rate for federal and state taxes, a whopping 51.9 percent.
New York City is only slightly behind California, with a combined rate of 51.7 percent — and the state is not much better, at 49.2 percent.
Of course, nothing enrages the advocates of higher taxation than pointing out the obvious. Anti-Perry radio ads funded by Democrats accuse him of “runnin’ around selling snake oil.” The Sacramento Bee insisted California was a more attractive place for businesses because of its “great weather and stunning mountains.”
Uh-huh. Even Gov. Jerry Brown chimed in on Perry’s push: “It’s not a serious story, guys. It’s not a burp. It’s barely a fart.”
We think they doth protest too much.
So does California’s lieutenant governor. As he admitted of Perry last week: “He’s getting in our heads.”
Maybe it’s because any comparison between the two states drives home the costs of having the highest marginal tax rates in the nation.
Those costs include 9.8 percent unemployment in California — against 6.1 percent for Texas.
It also includes capital flight. According to Travis Brown, author of “How Money Walks,” from 1995 to 2010 California saw $4.78 billion in adjusted gross income relocate to Texas.
New York has many of the same pathologies. Over the same time period, New York lost $1.56 billion in adjusted gross income to Texas (and $16.8 billion to Florida, another state with no income tax).
Though New York’s unemployment isn’t as high as California’s, at 8.2 percent it’s still much higher than in Texas.
Sure, there are many factors at work here. But when was the last time you heard a New York politician talk to business the way Perry does?
Perry is already getting a healthy chunk of New York’s wealth, and he’s besting this state in job creation by a Texas mile.
The least he could do in return is come here to make his case — and force a debate New York’s political class prefers to ignore.