Would the Last Person to Leave New York Remember to Turn Off the Lights
One of the many advantages of supporting yourself instead of relying on the federal government to satisfy all of your needs is that you have the freedom and resources to do what you want instead of having to wait around for your monthly welfare check. After two straight months of Obama's onslaught of liberal madness, I decided to take a break and spend a couple weeks in Miami Beach. What a pleasure it was to relax in the sun on the beach, watch the waves roll up, and forget all about how King Hussein Obama the First is trying to destroy this county.
For those of you that have never visited Miami Beach, I highly recommend it. The beach is long and wide and is backed by a classic wooden boardwalk for about twenty five blocks. Though I never go out late, the young kids tell me the night life is never ending and a lot of fun. I usually see the kids just starting their nightly reveries when I'm walking along Ocean Boulevard in the early evening. This street contains numerous examples of the Art Deco style of architecture that was prevalent in this country between the world wars. For you liberals who think the world started yesterday, Art Deco, in the architectural sense, was a movement characterized by an ornate style that attempted to utilize what was for the time, modern building materials. So these restored old buildings are trimmed with neon lights, glass block, and streamlined corners and edges to match aerodynamic designs used in transportation. Nothing beats seeing all the multi-colored neon lights in the early evening as you walk down Ocean Boulevard.
Back in the Art Deco period, Miami Beach was the top tourist and snowbird destination in the country. Not everyone appreciates the history and architecture of this city though. Today the top destination, in Florida at least, is further up the coast, in the modern developments around West Palm Beach and Boca Rotan. This area is home to numerous famous people such as Donald Trump, Jimmy Buffett, Tiger Woods, Rod Stewart, Joe Namath, and most importantly for today's post, the man the liberals love to hate, Rush Limbaugh.
Recently, in response to the latest wave of new taxes and tax increases piled onto New York's already over-burdened citizens, Limbaugh announced that he was selling his residence in the state and moving south. For you progressives out there who are afraid to listen to anything contrary to the standard liberal propaganda, Limbaugh moved from New York City to Palm Beach County several years ago, but continued to maintain a residence in New York for, in his own words, "hurricane relief." According to Rush, he would spend about 15 days a year in New York City. Unfortunately for Rush, under the laws of the state of New York, Rush has to pay taxes on the proportion of his income that the state considers have been earned while he was in New York City for those 15 days. Given that in his leaked 2004 divorce proceedings Limbaugh's monthly income was estimated to be between $2 and $3 million and that he has just signed a new contract with Clear Channel Communications that will pay him $400 million over the next several years, his New York income is probably a fair hunk of change.
It goes without saying that the liberals hate Rush but you'd think that it might give them pause when a successful, wealthy man turns his back on their state. Being illogical liberals though, they were overjoyed at the prospect of losing Rush's contribution to the New York treasury. Democratic New York Governor David Patterson laughed about Limbaugh's decision, saying, "If I knew that was going to be the result (i.e. Limbaugh leaving New York) I would have thought about the taxes earlier." http://www.nbcnewyork.com/station/as_seen_on/Paterson_Pokes_Fun_at_Limbaugh_New_York.html
Scott Ross of NBC jokes that Rush's leaving the state is the "silver lining to the state's current fiscal crisis." http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/A-Big-fat-Rush-to-Leave-New-York.html Ross's article is a standard liberal hit piece on Limbaugh but contains a classic example of the liberal media's penchant for twisting the truth.
Ross notes that unlike New York, Florida does not have a state income tax. Ever inquisitive, he wonders how Florida manages to fund its governmental operations. After what I'm sure was extension research on Wikipedia, he gives us this answer:
In 2004, New York received 79 cents from Washington for every dollar it paid. Florida, on the other hand, received $1.02 for every dollar it paid. Maybe it's not that Rush hates paying taxes, rather he loves spending other people's tax dollars.
His source for this statement is a special report put out by the Tax Foundation in March 2006, Federal Tax Burdens and Expenditures by State. The Tax Foundation is a non-profit organization created in 1937 to, according to their website, "educate taxpayers about sound tax policy and the size of the tax burden by Americans at all levels of government." The Tax Foundation's website is full of special reports, publications and a wealth of other information on this subject. If Comrade Ross would have spent a few more minutes on this site, he might have come across another publication entitled. Estimating Federal Tax Burdens for Major City Areas, Counties, and U.S. Congressional Districts, published in March 2007. http://www.taxfoundation.org/files/wp2.pdf
Starting on page 25 in section VII: Final Federal Tax Burden Totals, is Table 6: Total Federal Tax Burdens Per Household by MSA, Calendar Year 2004. An MSA is short for Metropolitan Statistical Areas, government speak for a city and its suburbs. . According to the authors calculations, New York City which is in the New York MSA has an average total federal tax burden of $23,014, which ranks 20th in the nation. Palm Beach County, Rush's present home, is located in the West Palm Beach – Boca Raton MSA. This MSA has an average total federal tax burden of $24,635, which ranks 15th in the nation. So under Comrade Ross's own logic, if Florida is truly mooching off the federal government, Rush and his fellow citizens in southern Florida are contributing more towards that burden than their enlightened friends to the north.
On a more basic level though, it's typical of liberals that they never connect their various beliefs in any coherent, logical fashion. The liberals are always telling us what a dullard Rush Limbaugh is. Under their logic then he surely can't be the first person to come up with this reaction to the high taxes in New York. No doubt others are already leaving and/or contemplating the idea. So if enough rich people leave, who's going to pay the taxes that provide the funds for the services the liberals love to hand out so freely? Wasn't that the whole point of raising the taxes in the first place? Only in the bizarre world of liberalism do they celebrate their defeats.
No comments:
Post a Comment