Doofus Of The Day #426

Today's award goes collectively to the unions and politicians in Oregon who campaigned for that State's increased taxes on the wealthy, passed in a public referendum in January this year.

Guess what? The Wall Street Journal reports:

Oregon raised its income tax on the richest 2% of its residents last year to fix its budget hole, but now the state treasury admits it collected nearly one-third less revenue than the bean counters projected. The sun also rose in the east, and the Cubs didn't win the World Series.

That's right . . . after Oregon decided to raise their taxes, a bunch of richer Oregonians decided they could do rather better for themselves if they were no longer Oregonians. In other words, they voted with their feet - and now the state of Oregon is collecting even less tax than it would have if its rates had remained unchanged.

To quote Homer Simpson: "Well, doh!"

I'm equally amused by the furious denials of pro-higher-taxes Oregonians. Take, for example, Blue Oregon, a Web site that describes its mission as follows:

We'll be working to reflect the full diversity of Oregon progressivism - socio-economically, geographically, ideologically, ethnically, and beyond.

Our goal? To be the single best place for progressive Oregonians to catch the zeitgeist of our world; to motivate, educate, and elucidate; to help keep Oregon Blue.

Uh-huh. With that approach, it's not surprising that Oregon Blue wasn't too impressed with the Wall Street Journal's analysis. I won't bother quoting them, but in a nutshell, they're clutching at any and every possible straw to provide alternative explanations for the reduction in tax revenues. They also tried to argue that the Wall Street Journal was incorrect to point out that Maryland, which also tried to hike taxes on the rich, also lost a large number of those rich residents as soon as the tax passed.

It's just the same old whines from the same old tax-and-spend types . . . When will the loony Left get it? If you try to squeeze too many golden eggs out of the goose that lays them, sooner or later the goose is going to leave for more attractive pastures elsewhere! It's been that way since the dawn of time, and I don't think it's about to change.

Peter