EDIT
I want to clarify something right off the bat: the article's words are not mine. I do not agree with every nuance, jot and tiddle (is that a word??) and my posting a link to it should not be construed as such. HOWEVER I think the author makes some valid, important points, if nuanced rather than said outright, that need to be taken into account in the rapidly changing, fluid world around us. Please see the comments for some good discussion on that and please add to the discussion by commenting yourself. Thanks.
I read a really insightful article that's been making its way around the J-Blogosphere, plus the Jewish news sites as well (well, not YWN, naturally, as you'll see if you read the article). I urge everyone to read it. Link to it here.
I'll leave it up to the comments section to spur discussion and thought about the points raised.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Happiness and...Taxes
I haven't posted in a while. Let's get back to business, shall we? People will call me cranky, but somebody's got to recognize these issues and shove them into the limelight, no?
There's an interesting article on the Tax Foundation's website. I like it because it has this to say about taxes and lifestyle. Much of this culled from a Wall Street Journal editorial:
"The study finds that New Yorkers are the unhappiest people in America and their neighbors in Connecticut come in a close second, followed by Michigan, Indiana, New Jersey, California, and Illinois."
Then this:
"...According to the Tax Foundation 2008 analysis, three of the top five unhappiest states—New York, Connecticut and New Jersey—have the highest state-local tax burdens. On the other hand, four of the top five happiest states—Louisiana, Florida, Tennessee and Arizona—are among the states with the lowest state-local tax burdens. True, correlation doesn't prove causation, and high taxes alone don't always make people miserable, but there's something going on here."
So in New York State, we work really hard to make a living. We then see an enormous percentage of that money out the door by spending a disproportionately higher portion of our dollars on state, local, and property taxes, and receive a much, much lower return per tax dollar collected than other states, because of huge budget allocations that behave like Robin Hood. So say you spend like $15-$20K a year on NYS, you get in return... garbage collection, plus sleepless nights wondering about family finances thrown in for free! Maybe a bit of street repair thrown in, too. Maybe. And a bit of schooling. If you're not an Orthodox Jew. Mr. and Mrs Illegal Immigrant spend nearly $0 per year on NYS and receive, say, $20-$25K worth of assistance per year (if you game the system right), if not more. Yay. That makes me... happy??
Rinse, repeat for NJ. At least NJ residents had the good sense to recognize the problems and throw out garbage leadership, while New Yorkers continue year after year after year after year to vote in complete and utter self-aggrandizing grandstanding self-centered avaricious petty idiot nincompoop babies (I can say more but this is a FAMILY FRIENDLY blog!) who treat public office as a profitable enterprise and spy on each other (with state money) and hire nice fancy limousines and drivers (with state money) and grind state activity to a halt and hire prostitutes and get in bed with money launderers and have fun in session engaging in really productive name-calling (all while getting paid with... state money) and spend huge amounts of time and effort in lofty thought on legislation that truly means almost nothing practical or material to nearly everybody (did someone say same-sex marriage?) instead of working together, rolling up their sleeves, and hammering out reforms that materially affect massive amounts of people that most agree on like, uh, for example, TAX RELIEF and SPENDING REFORM.
Something's going on, indeed.
There's an interesting article on the Tax Foundation's website. I like it because it has this to say about taxes and lifestyle. Much of this culled from a Wall Street Journal editorial:
"The study finds that New Yorkers are the unhappiest people in America and their neighbors in Connecticut come in a close second, followed by Michigan, Indiana, New Jersey, California, and Illinois."
Then this:
"...According to the Tax Foundation 2008 analysis, three of the top five unhappiest states—New York, Connecticut and New Jersey—have the highest state-local tax burdens. On the other hand, four of the top five happiest states—Louisiana, Florida, Tennessee and Arizona—are among the states with the lowest state-local tax burdens. True, correlation doesn't prove causation, and high taxes alone don't always make people miserable, but there's something going on here."
So in New York State, we work really hard to make a living. We then see an enormous percentage of that money out the door by spending a disproportionately higher portion of our dollars on state, local, and property taxes, and receive a much, much lower return per tax dollar collected than other states, because of huge budget allocations that behave like Robin Hood. So say you spend like $15-$20K a year on NYS, you get in return... garbage collection, plus sleepless nights wondering about family finances thrown in for free! Maybe a bit of street repair thrown in, too. Maybe. And a bit of schooling. If you're not an Orthodox Jew. Mr. and Mrs Illegal Immigrant spend nearly $0 per year on NYS and receive, say, $20-$25K worth of assistance per year (if you game the system right), if not more. Yay. That makes me... happy??
Rinse, repeat for NJ. At least NJ residents had the good sense to recognize the problems and throw out garbage leadership, while New Yorkers continue year after year after year after year to vote in complete and utter self-aggrandizing grandstanding self-centered avaricious petty idiot nincompoop babies (I can say more but this is a FAMILY FRIENDLY blog!) who treat public office as a profitable enterprise and spy on each other (with state money) and hire nice fancy limousines and drivers (with state money) and grind state activity to a halt and hire prostitutes and get in bed with money launderers and have fun in session engaging in really productive name-calling (all while getting paid with... state money) and spend huge amounts of time and effort in lofty thought on legislation that truly means almost nothing practical or material to nearly everybody (did someone say same-sex marriage?) instead of working together, rolling up their sleeves, and hammering out reforms that materially affect massive amounts of people that most agree on like, uh, for example, TAX RELIEF and SPENDING REFORM.
Something's going on, indeed.
Hodu l'Hashem Ki Tov!
HODU L'HASHEM KI TOV!
We said this at the bris of our son at 8 days old, Daniel Tzvi, born 10 days ago. We actually said it twice, if I'm not mistaken.
And we MEANT it!!
Thanks to everybody for everything!
We said this at the bris of our son at 8 days old, Daniel Tzvi, born 10 days ago. We actually said it twice, if I'm not mistaken.
And we MEANT it!!
Thanks to everybody for everything!
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