We’ve made the case that given the extraordinary political polarization of left versus right in America today, one of the only ways we can all get along is to devolve as much power to the states as possible. If Californians and New Yorkers want to continue to crash their states over a progressive cliff, so be it.
This isn’t at all a radical idea, after all, the 10th Amendment is right there in the Bill of Rights:
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
The left wants to federalize everything — from education to labor and tax policies to abortion — so that Americans can’t escape their tyranny.
Stuart Adams, the Republican President of the Utah State Senate, is a HOTLINE reader and he got an idea from these pages a few months ago. We wrote about Alberta, the province in Canada, invoking a sovereignty clause to counteract Ottawa’s anti-fossil fuel regulations.
Stuart Adams President of Utah Senate
Now the state of Utah has passed the Utah Constitutional Sovereignty Act, to allow the state legislature to vote by supermajority on whether a "federal directive violates the principles of state sovereignty", therefore, the state will not comply.
A resolution passed under the new Utah law would not allow the state to nullify the federal directive. But it would prohibit the state government or any of its political subdivisions from participating in or enforcing the federal action named in the resolution.
We are all for ideas like this, and will continue to resist unlawful regulations that never were approved by Congress.
3) New Jersey Residents Pay $1 Million in Taxes From Birth to Death
Quick question ahead of Tax Day. According to the personal finance site Self Financial, which state’s residents pay the highest lifetime taxes? We won’t keep you in suspense. It’s New Jersey, whose residents pay an average of just short of $1 million ($987,117).
Next question: according to United Van Lines which state lost the most residents to other states in 2023? Good guess, it’s The Garden State. Do you think there is any possible connection between those two facts?
As we frequently point out in the Hotline, the evidence is abundant. Five other high-tax states, California, Illinois, Kansas, Massachusetts, and New York, rank in the top eight for 2023 outbound migration in the United Van Lines study.
Where did they move? Almost entirely low-tax states: including Alabama, Arkansas, New Mexico, North and South Carolina, South Dakota, and West Virginia (which was the lowest-taxed state).
By the way, the Self Financial study added up taxes on income, homes, cars, clothing, food, drink, entertainment, and personal care. It found that the average lifetime tax payments for an American are $524,625, or over one-third of average earnings. After New Jersey, it’s no surprise the most taxed jurisdiction is bureaucrat-heaven Washington D.C. at $884,820. Connecticut and Massachusetts are third and fourth, at $855,307 and $816,700.
Another consumer stomach punch from the Biden Inflation is that the affordability of housing is at its lowest level since the 1980s, with both steep mortgage rates and soaring prices for homes marking misery for buyers.
But other factors are keeping people away from a new dwelling. Non-mortgage costs ranging from property taxes to maintenance, utilities, and home insurance make up more than half the cost of owning a home and they are all rising steeply.
In California, property taxes have gone up by nearly 23 percent since 2019 – even with the protections of Proposition 13. In Charlotte, N.C., the average property tax rose 31.5 percent from 2022 to 2023. In Indianapolis, it was up nearly 19 percent.
