Blue Flight Continues Apace

Almost wish they could not flee from their mistakes. They leave others to pay the price for their voting idiocy and we in the red states risk being poisoned by their bringing those voting booth habits to our states.

Blues leave the nest they soiled and land in a Red nest. First thing they then do is get loud for all the things they miss about the old nest. Here in my bucolic red state, the 'neighborhood chat' forums are of late filled with the clamoring to attend No Kings rallies, and 'get involved' cheerleading. They presume we are not involved already. They presume to know better and want to 'fix' their new surroundings.

Those of us older people remember the 'Laffer Curve' that shows the higher taxes that states impose, their revenue actually declines. The wealthy and those with the means to leave, do so. Others change their habits and start avoiding the higher taxes by engaging in some 'creative' tax returns once they believe taxes have become confiscatory and the government is wasting their money. Self-interest and simple economics always eventually rule.

Traffic in Florida is getting awful. Bugs, mosquitos, gators, hurricanes, sunburn, rednecks .....You won't like it here. Stay home: you caused it, now step in it.

The corollary to this article's premise is just as important for policy making today. In 1990, Peterson and Rom published a well-researched book through the Brookings Institution, that I was required to read and discuss in grad school, entitled "Welfare Magnets - A New Case for a National Standard." The authors cited strong empirical evidence that states with higher welfare benefits (today's Blue states) act as magnets by attracting poor people and those lacking the desire to actually work for a living from states with less generous welfare benefits (Red states). Despite the fact that federal tax dollars fund about 75% of the welfare dollars doled out by individual states. During the early 1990s, people from the midwest and northeast were flocking to Texas and other southern states with growing economies, for the availability of good jobs; conversely, there was a reverse migration of the indigent by choice or circumstance to states like MA, MN, CA, NY, WI, IL, and CT - all bright blue states. The federal welfare dollars were supplemented by high state income and business taxes. Many of the welfare magnet states tracked the inquiries made by prospective transplants, calling by phone to inquire, and presumably compare welfare benefits, seeking to optimize their hand-outs. The authors, Peterson and Rom, advocated establishing a nation-wide standard for the states' provision of welfare benefits to eliminate the "shopping sprees" of those looking to score the highest welfare benefits, with no thought to seeking better jobs or any sort of gainful employment. The 'shoppers' were overwhelmingly minorities and recent immigrants. The lack of any national policy movement on their findings has produced the clear Red-Blue divide that may ultimately metastasize into a civil war. Democrat senators - surprise! - killed every measure of reform passed by the House. Ecclesiastes 1:9 was proven once again: "The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun."

The fly in the ointment is that these 'blue flight' clowns all too often bring their leftist voting patterns and high government services expectations with them when they move....and wreck another state.

For those who leave blue states, don't come to Oklahoma. It never rains, the heat is awful in summer, we have earthquakes and have you seen what a tornado can do? And we have those, by the bunches, in spring. And don't get me started on property taxes, outrageous. So as you run from your state, bypass Oklahoma. I hear Florida is nice this time of year.

I wish they could take a loyalty oath before they move in. But they would lie.