The Nation's Financial Condition

[MDlaxfan76]

The other side of the coin with Texas and other states with no income tax is that they make it up with higher taxes on other things.

For instance Texas has much higher property taxes.

My sister lives there. She has complained about all the taxes. Driving from north of Dallas to downtown gets expensive quickly. My cousin moved out there and wanted to moved back to Indiana despite the higher pay. Greater Dallas is great but there are taxes. Higher earners don’t feel the pinch as much though.

Because they're less progressive taxes, I assume?

Tolls, fees, etc?

[Typical Lax Dad]

The other side of the coin with Texas and other states with no income tax is that they make it up with higher taxes on other things.

For instance Texas has much higher property taxes.

My sister lives there. She has complained about all the taxes. Driving from north of Dallas to downtown gets expensive quickly. My cousin moved out there and wanted to moved back to Indiana despite the higher pay. Greater Dallas is great but there are taxes. Higher earners don’t feel the pinch as much though.

Because they're less progressive taxes, I assume?

Tolls, fees, etc?

Yes....among other things. https://www.dallasnews.com/business/rea ... -re-right/

https://www.avalara.com/taxrates/en/sta ... es/dallas/

[Farfromgeneva]

North Texas Toll Road is more critical to Dallas commutes than the Skyway is to chicago or Dulles toll Road into DC. Had some involvement with the latter two which were/are owned by maquarie (australian shop) and have traded some third lien revenue bonds on the NTTA.

Thing about the credit ratings is that the growth has happened in advance of the necessary infrastructure spending. Cobb co ga is going to get blasted in the next 20yrs on school spending and roads, before even having to pay for the unnecessary new braces ballpark. Newer, fast growing southern/sunbelt cities have grown horizontally rather than vertically and you can see the inflection point coming. SC and NC roads are pretty rough and the SE school systems are some of the worst in the country broadly speaking. Austin TX has one neighborhood that’s brutally overpriced bc it’s the one school district everyone wants to be in.

[a fan]

North Texas Toll Road is more critical to Dallas commutes than the Skyway is to chicago or Dulles toll Road into DC. Had some involvement with the latter two which were/are owned by maquarie (australian shop) and have traded some third lien revenue bonds on the NTTA.

Thing about the credit ratings is that the growth has happened in advance of the necessary infrastructure spending. Cobb co ga is going to get blasted in the next 20yrs on school spending and roads, before even having to pay for the unnecessary new braces ballpark. Newer, fast growing southern/sunbelt cities have grown horizontally rather than vertically and you can see the inflection point coming.

Yep. Happens everywhere. No one thinks long term. When the boom comes, local government think "boy, I can't believe how much money is rolling in", and forget that they need to use that money for larger infrastructure buildouts. And then when the boom ends----and it always does-----city council feign surprise that the money is no longer there, and anything resembling a rain cloud leads to flooding because they didn't bother to build adequate storm drainage.

But hey, taxes are low, so what could possibly go wrong, right?

Ask North Dakotans how their local governments handled infrastructure improvement during the fracking boom.

Last two States I've lived in, MI and CO, use what I'd call a pyramid scheme property tax structure, where they mess with the math of "assessed value" to artificially keep property taxes down. The taxes are "reset" when a property changes hands....but until that happens, the assessed value is basically frozen in place. The result of this is that you wind up trying to build a road in 2019 with receipts that pretend it's still the 1990's...... and worse, you need a constant influx of new residents arriving who pay full freight on their newly acquired home or business.

This, of course, puts the tax rates through the roof for businesses and people looking to move into the State. Meanwhile, lifelong residents are paying a fraction of that rate.....which also means these stupid property tax laws are impossible to rescind.

Stupid. Monumentally stupid.

Austin TX has one neighborhood that’s brutally overpriced bc it’s the one school district everyone wants to be in.

This is why I've never understood why anyone would vote no on a tax increase for schools. Any piddly tax is more than made up for in the increased value of your home. If your area schools suck------your property value suffers.

[Farfromgeneva]

There’s also pension funding, can’t be dumped on PBGC like Corporate ones. Many state and local are way, way underfunded. This one cuts both ways though, Visalia fire and police behaved super selfishly and caused the town to go Bk, not worthy of the blanket “fire and police automatically should be revered” mentality that’s out there.

Here’s some sites for info on NTTA and dulles if anyone is interested:

https://www.ntta.org/whatwedo/fin_inves ... lReportsBM

https://www.atlasarteria.com/portfolio/dulles-greenway

There was a tough stretch through the crisis on the Chicago skyway, an 8mi Road Into Chicago that was the first us infrastructure privatization but ultimately sold for around $3Bn maybe 2-3yrs ago, was acquired for around $2Bn but highly levered and Maquarie pays a fixed preferred dividend rate so did pretty well overall on it.

Some info on state and local pension funding

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.brooki ... risis/amp/

https://www.hoover.org/news/hidden-debt ... 019-update

[a fan]

We've discussed pensions quite a bit at the old Water Cooler.

They don't work. Period.

I remember a pension story for a city in Michigan (I think Hamtramack) where they had two retired firefighters on full pensions for every actual firefighter.

This meant, obviously, that the cost for a single firefighter in 2019 was well over $300K. That's, obviously, insane.

I love our police and firefighters as much as the next guy----but it's financially impossible to let them work 25 years, and retire at 60-85% of their highest wage, plus health care for life. The math is laughable. It's not even a close call.

What people think is that if you use bigger numbers with people from an entire State, "somehow" the math works out. It doesn't.

You'd be better off paying these State Workers 2x their current salaries, and cutting them off the day they stop working.

A starting salary for a cop at $125 might sound crazy-----but it's 1000 times better than a mediocre salary, followed by 30 years of collecting a pension.

[CU88]

There’s also pension funding, can’t be dumped on PBGC like Corporate ones. Many state and local are way, way underfunded. This one cuts both ways though, Visalia fire and police behaved super selfishly and caused the town to go Bk, not worthy of the blanket “fire and police automatically should be revered” mentality that’s out there.

Here’s some sites for info on NTTA and dulles if anyone is interested:

https://www.ntta.org/whatwedo/fin_inves ... lReportsBM

https://www.atlasarteria.com/portfolio/dulles-greenway

There was a tough stretch through the crisis on the Chicago skyway, an 8mi Road Into Chicago that was the first us infrastructure privatization but ultimately sold for around $3Bn maybe 2-3yrs ago, was acquired for around $2Bn but highly levered and Maquarie pays a fixed preferred dividend rate so did pretty well overall on it.

Some info on state and local pension funding

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.brooki ... risis/amp/

https://www.hoover.org/news/hidden-debt ... 019-update

The Greenway is NOT the DTR.

DTR users $ pays for the land and construction of the free access road to IAD. Which now is home to the WMATA Silver line.

[a fan]

duplicate post

[ardilla secreta]

The other side of the coin with Texas and other states with no income tax is that they make it up with higher taxes on other things.

For instance Texas has much higher property taxes.

My sister lives there. She has complained about all the taxes. Driving from north of Dallas to downtown gets expensive quickly. My cousin moved out there and wanted to moved back to Indiana despite the higher pay. Greater Dallas is great but there are taxes. Higher earners don’t feel the pinch as much though.

I never understood why folks got all frothy over states with no income tax. It just doesn’t add up. The money has to come from somewhere unless services and schools aren’t adequately funded. Duh.

[ardilla secreta]

We've discussed pensions quite a bit at the old Water Cooler.

They don't work. Period.

I remember a pension story for a city in Michigan (I think Hamtramack) where they had two retired firefighters on full pensions for every actual firefighter.

This meant, obviously, that the cost for a single firefighter in 2019 was well over $300K. That's, obviously, insane.

I love our police and firefighters as much as the next guy----but it's financially impossible to let them work 25 years, and retire at 60-85% of their highest wage, plus health care for life. The math is laughable. It's not even a close call.

What people think is that if you use bigger numbers with people from an entire State, "somehow" the math works out. It doesn't.

You'd be better off paying these State Workers 2x their current salaries, and cutting them off the day they stop working.

A starting salary for a cop at $125 might sound crazy-----but it's 1000 times better than a mediocre salary, followed by 30 years of collecting a pension.

Agree. Just think how our existing public and private pensions would benefit from a national heath care system. Not to mention worker’s comp issues.

[a fan]

Yep.

And imagine if us business owners didn't have to pay for our employee's health care, and could spend it on finding more business?

[Typical Lax Dad]

There’s also pension funding, can’t be dumped on PBGC like Corporate ones. Many state and local are way, way underfunded. This one cuts both ways though, Visalia fire and police behaved super selfishly and caused the town to go Bk, not worthy of the blanket “fire and police automatically should be revered” mentality that’s out there.

Here’s some sites for info on NTTA and dulles if anyone is interested:

https://www.ntta.org/whatwedo/fin_inves ... lReportsBM

https://www.atlasarteria.com/portfolio/dulles-greenway

There was a tough stretch through the crisis on the Chicago skyway, an 8mi Road Into Chicago that was the first us infrastructure privatization but ultimately sold for around $3Bn maybe 2-3yrs ago, was acquired for around $2Bn but highly levered and Maquarie pays a fixed preferred dividend rate so did pretty well overall on it.

Some info on state and local pension funding

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.brooki ... risis/amp/

https://www.hoover.org/news/hidden-debt ... 019-update

Visalia is Devin Nunes hometown! A guy that built some amplifiers for me knows him. Nunes went to school with his son. Just a factoid that is stuck in my head.

[Farfromgeneva]

There’s also pension funding, can’t be dumped on PBGC like Corporate ones. Many state and local are way, way underfunded. This one cuts both ways though, Visalia fire and police behaved super selfishly and caused the town to go Bk, not worthy of the blanket “fire and police automatically should be revered” mentality that’s out there.

Here’s some sites for info on NTTA and dulles if anyone is interested:

https://www.ntta.org/whatwedo/fin_inves ... lReportsBM

https://www.atlasarteria.com/portfolio/dulles-greenway

There was a tough stretch through the crisis on the Chicago skyway, an 8mi Road Into Chicago that was the first us infrastructure privatization but ultimately sold for around $3Bn maybe 2-3yrs ago, was acquired for around $2Bn but highly levered and Maquarie pays a fixed preferred dividend rate so did pretty well overall on it.

Some info on state and local pension funding

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.brooki ... risis/amp/

https://www.hoover.org/news/hidden-debt ... 019-update

The Greenway is NOT the DTR.

DTR users $ pays for the land and construction of the free access road to IAD. Which now is home to the WMATA Silver line.

Correct, my mistake I always considered all of 267 the same road but yes, although it is literally an extension of the road into and through loudon co which is one of the faster growing counties in the DC area and the one that holds the working class citizens who can’t live in close in Fairfax Co or Arlington co cities. Covers basically anything past the airport.

[Peter Brown]

Agree. Just think how our existing public and private pensions would benefit from a national heath care system. Not to mention worker’s comp issues.

I am in favor of some manner of a public health care option for 2 primary reasons:

1. Too many situations where people are bankrupted by a medical emergency

2. At the end of our lives, besides realizing that love and the realization of time were all we really ever had as humans, without good health so much is lost

This is a moral imperative for a leader (not a partisan playing to his/her audience) to devise a system where people do not need to worry about their health. I am rightly suspicious of people like Elizabeth Warren and any 'plan' she conceives of; color me skeptical of her motives on practically everything. Ironically, a guy like Bernie might have the right message and plan, but he is an awful leader. Frankly I think it will need to be a Republican who comes up with a plan and carries it through Congress, because you will need a Republican to provide cover for his/her base (who will see a massive government expansion as message if the message is carried by a Democrat). But that will take significant leadership chops on the part of a Republican to do so, and I am not confident on this.

Frustrating for the pragmatist in any one.

[Peter Brown]

Why are your two issues mutually exclusive? Why can't you have more tax cuts and more customers?

Because we're running a massive deficit, and the roads and bridges I need to ship my goods are falling apart. That costs me more transportation dollars.

Is that truly accurate? I travel to Denver a decent amount. I have never looked at those local roads and bridges (and airports!) as anything less than spectacular, new, solid. I do not live there obviously, but is the news of our country's infrastructure collapsing perhaps highly exaggerated?

The amount of money the FAA is spending on airfields around America is staggering...I am not aware of one airport (commercial or private) which is not seeing a decent flow of dollars upgrading runways, terminals, mass transit, FBO's, etc...

[Farfromgeneva]

Need, required

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.infras ... eased/amp/

[HooDat]

It used to be you'd build a better mousetrap in America. Now instead, you hire a lobbyist or a lawyer to DC to write laws and rules that make your business more money.

It's un-American, and these people are ruining what was economically great about our country.

^^^^^^^^ THIS ^^^^^^^

it is why I have little time for most of the "renewable" energy programs that don't work, they just suck up tax-payer money.

But the same dynamic now drives almost all of Corporate America. Sometime in the 80's the corporations realized there are two ways to make easy money: 1) outsource labor to quasi slave countries, or 2) take it from the government.

[HooDat]

The other side of the coin with Texas and other states with no income tax is that they make it up with higher taxes on other things.

For instance Texas has much higher property taxes.

My sister lives there. She has complained about all the taxes. Driving from north of Dallas to downtown gets expensive quickly. My cousin moved out there and wanted to moved back to Indiana despite the higher pay. Greater Dallas is great but there are taxes. Higher earners don’t feel the pinch as much though.

I never understood why folks got all frothy over states with no income tax. It just doesn’t add up. The money has to come from somewhere unless services and schools aren’t adequately funded. Duh.

My personal experience is that property and sales taxes in Texas are no higher than most other states. The reason states like Texas and Florida can have no state income tax are because of oil revenue in the case of Texas and Tourist income in the case of Florida. The citizens pay less in taxes because folks from other states pay into the system.

[a fan]

Is that truly accurate? I travel to Denver a decent amount. I have never looked at those local roads and bridges (and airports!) as anything less than spectacular, new, solid. I do not live there obviously, but is the news of our country's infrastructure collapsing perhaps highly exaggerated?

The amount of money the FAA is spending on airfields around America is staggering...I am not aware of one airport (commercial or private) which is not seeing a decent flow of dollars upgrading runways, terminals, mass transit, FBO's, etc...

Your flying business is good, no?

Why? Because more people are flying then they were 20 years ago, no? Would you expect more wear and tear on infrastructure? How's funding to air traffic control, the FAA, etc?

When I say infrastructure, I'm specifically talking about roads, bridges, forests, dams, storm water systems, water, electricity, and even internet.

We're falling apart. Notice how many more fires we're having out West? We have no money for forest management.

[foreverlax]

Total Tax Rate by State with ratings. States in green have no income tax

over 10%

New York AA+ 12.97%
Hawaii AA+ 11.71%
Maine AA 10.84%
Vermont AA+ 10.77%
Minnesota AA+ 10.25%
Rhode Island AA 10.20%


under 10%

New Jersey A- 9.86%
Connecticut AA- 9.70%
Illinois BBB- 9.67%
Iowa AAA 9.49%
California AA- 9.47%
Ohio AA+ 9.31%
Maryland AAA 9.26%
Nebraska AAA 9.21%
West VA AA- 9.18%
Wisconsin AA 9.15%
Arkansas AA 9.11%
Mississippi AA 9.02%

under 9%

Massachusetts AA+ 8.90%
Kentucky A+ 8.77%
Kansas AA- 8.77%
New Mexico AA+ 8.66%
Pennsylvania AA- 8.58%
Louisiana AA 8.51%
Michigan AA- 8.40%
North Carolina AAA 8.38%
Arizona AA 8.26%
Nevada AA 8.26%
Utah AAA 8.26%
Oregon AA+ 8.25%
Indiana AAA 8.22%
Washington AA+ 8.20%
Texas AAA 8.18%
Colorado AA 8.15%
Georgia AAA 8.10%

under 8%

Missouri AAA 7.86%
North Dakota AA+ 7.83% (.88% income tax)
Virginia AAA 7.80%
Idaho AA+ 7.75%
South Carolina AA+ 7.55%
Wyoming AA+ 7.51%
Alabama AA 7.28%
South Dakota AAA 7.28%
Montana AA 7.27%
Oklahoma AA+ 7.12%

under 7%

New Hampshire AA 6.86%
Florida AAA 6.56%
Tennessee AAA 6.28% (.11% income tax)
Delaware AAA 5.55%
Alaska AA 5.10%

States with "BBB" or below and average total tax rate

1 - 9.67%

States with "A- to A+" and average total tax rate

2 - 9.32%

States with "AA- to AA+" and average total tax rate
33 - 8.75%

States with "AAA" and average total tax rate

14 - 7.89%

41 States have a rating of "AA- to AA", with an average tax rate of 8.42%

9 States have a rating of below "AA-", with an average tax rate of 9.16%

Mean rate of all states - 8.55%

Median rate of all states - 8.26%
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