by Dan Mitchell | Jul 1, 2025 | Blogs, States, Taxation
In 1972, Ohio politicians made the mistake of imposing a state income tax. That first tax had a top rate of 3.5 percent, but politicians quickly became addicted to this new source of tax revenue. By 1984, the top rate had jumped to 9.5 percent....
by Dan Mitchell | Jun 27, 2025 | Blogs, States
When I write about state economic policy, my go-to resources are Economic Freedom of North America and Freedom in the 50 States. But I need to add Rich States, Poor States, which is published by the American Legislative Exchange Council. Here’s a...
by Dan Mitchell | Jun 12, 2025 | Big Government, Blogs
One of the most unfortunate features of Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill is that it expands the deduction for state and local taxes, thus weakening one of the best provisions of the 2017 tax package. This is bad news since it is foolish to have a...
by Dan Mitchell | May 21, 2025 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending, Welfare and Entitlements
Excessive government spending is America’s top fiscal problem. To be more specific, poorly designed entitlement programs are leading to an ever-growing spending burden that ultimately will either lead to massive tax increases or a debt crisis. To...
by Dan Mitchell | Apr 12, 2025 | Big Government, Blogs, Government Spending, States, Taxation
As illustrated by the changes in my state tax rankings between 2018 and 2023, there’s been a lot of progress. Several red states have shifted to flat taxes and lowered tax rates, putting the class-warfare blue states at an even bigger...
