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DC is tough, and getting tougher, on people who are successful financially, with the nation's highest and most progressive tax rates. It's only logical, and not at all "wrong," that folks with higher incomes (and higher tax revenues to pay) stay *away* from DC and locate in VA or MD. Or as young couples grow in income, they leave (by the droves), and it's getting so tough, that even folks who have stayed despite the financial irrationality, ponder moving up the road to MD or across the river to VA. If they are even going tax theaters, why bother with DC anymore? The flight of households with over $200,000 will in turn, cause property values to flatten, leading to less property tax revenue, and sales tax revenue decline even more. Note the incredible tax revenue just across the border all around DC -- Friendship Heights/Bethesda, Silver Spring, Roslyn, Beltsville, etc. You can see billions of dollars in tax revenue from your house! Duh. It takes a very short-sighted and not very bright DC'er not to see the long-term damage to DC by *increasing* the already highest high-income tax rates and ancillary revenue-enhancing gimmicks. DC has maxed out the option of just raising more money from the affluent, and even more will have a devastating financial impact on the budget, including DC's ability to meet the needs of the most needy. Yet it is amazing the knee-jerk reaction of seemingly intelligent people like the writer of the article. The answer: balance, efficiency, private market help. The honest truth: DC just has to stop, cut, and even shrink its government in many respects. The DC formula has failed, is failing, and more of the same will send us right back to Control Board Status.

by HammondB3 on May 17, 2011 10:06 pm • link • report