Craig Ladwig
I WAS SURPRISED and disappointed in Indiana’s ranking on the just-released Internal Revenue Service report on interstate migration.
I subscribe to the boosterish Indianapolis Business Journal, you see, and it seems hardly a summer goes by that it doesn’t report the governor is wheels up to Europe, China or somewhere exotic to bring back high-paying jobs. And were Darrel Doden and his GOP eco-deco buddies ever turned down for government money to leverage the dozens of public-private “partnerships” they scattered around the state?
So I expected better results. But it turns out that for every $200,000 salary all of this brings to Indiana another $200,000 salary leaves. We are treading water, in other words, spinning our wheels. Chris Edwards of Cato sums it up:
“Taxes are an important driver of migration, particularly for higher-income households. States with lower taxes tend to have higher ratios of in-migration to out-migration. The figure (above) ranks migration ratios for households earning more than $200,000. Of the nine states that do not have individual income taxes, seven of them are in the top 15 states for in-migration: Florida, Tennessee, South Dakota, Nevada, New Hampshire, Wyoming and Texas.”
Indiana is a pathetic 31st. We rank barely above Kansas and way behind Oklahoma, two God-awful places with decidedly hostile climates and desolate scenery. And we have a Republican governor and a legislative supermajority in both the House and Senate — and have had for a decade.
So, why is our political leadership satisfied with such a lackluster performance? Ruling out sabotage, it’s simply easier. Lowering taxes and reducing regulations — weather and living costs being equal — make a state attractive. Changing that is hard work.
It’s fun to meet for high-end lunches with CEOs and give them access to other people’s money (yours). I need not mention the governor’s jet flights across the sea with window seats for grateful political allies and their wives.
Back home, though, it is hard to explain economic realities and tradeoffs to the wooden heads in the Legislature. Worse, you make enemies of influential people with vested interests in this or that boondoggle or regulatory advantage. Better to busy yourself with what Thomas Sowell has famously characterized as “replacing what works with what sounds good.”
The master of this has been our Gov. Eric Holcomb. His ranking, interestingly, has risen on Cato’s Fiscal Policy Report on the Governors. He now is getting a “B.” Did I mention that he has been working with a veto-proof, solid, super Republican majority?
Perhaps we ruled out sabotage too hastily.