2) Speaking of the Swamp: DC Workers Make 33% More Than the Next Richest State
A new analysis by workforce monitor ADP finds that paychecks for DC workers are the highest in the land.
The top three states based on the median-sized worker paycheck are:
Washington, DC: $100,800
Massachusetts: $75,700
Alaska: $70,000
DC residents also earn twice as much as the median earner in 13 states. New Mexico's workers can't be too happy. DC workers now make nearly two and a half times as much as the average New Mexico resident.
And for what? Washington, D.C. produces almost nothing. There are no farms, no factories, no distribution centers, no manufacturing. The swamp does produce lawyers, lobbyists, regulations, rules, politicians, politicians' minions, special interest groups, journalists, and bureaucrats.
You've heard us say it many times: Washington is a city where people come to do good and end up doing well.
3) School Choice May Be Finally Coming to Texas's 5 Million Kids
Everything is big in Texas - including their second largest in the country school system. The school choice coalition that we partner with ALEC keeps coming close, then coming up short.
But we feel good about this year, thanks to a slew of anti-school choice Republicans who were run out of the legislature in last year's elections.
The new Speaker of the House, Dustin Burrows, like his predecessor Dade Phelan, was elected with mostly Democratic support. But unlike Phelan who killed school choice, we are cautiously optimistic that Burrows will not sabotage this effort.
The Texas Senate education bill has already been endorsed by the school choice forces. Here is a summary:
SB 2 creates a fully universal Education Savings Account (ESA) Program. All students in the State of Texas are eligible to apply and may be accepted into the program, including students that are:
Entering the school system for the first time (kindergartners or eligible preschoolers)
Currently enrolled in a public school
Currently enrolled in private school or home school
Prioritization
If the number of applications to the program do not exceed the number of spots available in the program, all eligible applicants will be accepted into the program.
If the number of applications exceeds the number of program spots available, the following prioritization scheme will be used:
Program administrators will fill up to 80% of available positions via a lottery of students who have previously attended public school; and either - are a member of a low-income household; or are a child with a disability
All remaining positions will be filled by lottery.
Allocation per Student
All students that are accepted into the ESA program are annually credited a minimum of $2,000 to their Education Savings Account.
However, if a family participating in the ESA program chooses to enroll their participating child in an accredited private school, that student's account is instead annually credited:
$11,500 if the student is a child with a disability; otherwise
$10,000 if the student is not a child with a disability.
Both the House and the Senate have set aside $1 billion for private school scholarships in their budget proposals.
4) Britain Discovers There Really Is a Laffer Curve
In November, we reported on the number of millionaires leaving Britain after it ended special rules that exempted some of the worldwide income of wealthy non-permanent residents. The Adam Smith Institute now estimates that the 10,800 millionaires who left last year would have paid just under half a million dollars a year in income tax. That's $5 billion lost income tax each and every year.
Britain taxes everything at a very high rate:
Top Individual Income Tax: 45%
Estate Tax: 40%
Value Added Tax: 20%
Corporate tax: 25%
Capital Gains Tax: 24%
Only China has lost more millionaires than Britain.
Britain is relearning a painful lesson it was taught in the 1970s before Margaret Thatcher's election: capital and wealth flow to where they are treated well. Britain's new taxes on the rich have only meant fewer rich people to tax. Duh!!
5) Quote of the Day: A Kamala Voter Realizes Why Trump Won
Stephen A. Smith has a big following as a host on the "woke" ESPN sports network. But he has been thinking why his candidate, Kamala Harris, was rejected by voters. Last Friday, he explained to Bill Maher on his HBO show why Trump won:
"Here's the deal: the man was impeached twice, he was convicted on 34 felony counts, and the American people still said, 'He's closer to normal than what we see on the left'......We have to look at this election as a referendum on the Democratic Party. And America's saying we're not feeling where you are, we're not feeling where you tried to go, we want no part of it, we're not having it - and they made their choice and we all have to accept it."
