Also, I have lived in a state with no income tax and I can readily attest that the near-utopia you promise will never arrive.

State governments, as with any governments, want to spend, spend, spend. Tennessee is no exception. While they cannot spend income tax monies as they have no income tax, they can raise the sales tax at whim. And they have. When I was in high school (early nineties) it was at six percent and some fraction. When I went back in 1999 it was around eight to nine percent. Now it’s ten percent and over. This includes, in the Memphis area, the state’s base rate plus local and city.

End result is the retail sector is always suffering because the unique geography of the state means that people in the major cities and surrounding bergs can just cross the state line to go shopping. There’s almost zero manufacturing in Tennessee anymore so the retail and service industries are just about it. I guess the only one still doing OK is the distribution sector in Memphis but there is no stepping-over-the-state-line equivalent to getting work done at the Fed Ex hub. Only geography is saving that particular industry though–right at the junction of the most central north-south and east-west interstate highways in the United States. And not everyone can work in distribution.

Also, the sales tax system in Tennessee does not provide exemption for food purchases. This translates to being held up for ten percent of your grocery purchase just so you won’t starve. Guess which demographic is impacted most by this. There was a time I sold plasma to have enough money to eat while I was between jobs and it really hurt me to have to pay that tax. People on food stamps must have it even worse because the food stamp program is supposed to be supplemental, not pay for a month’s full grocery costs, and you are not exempt from sales tax just because you’re on government benefits.

I realize Ohio does not have a food tax (other than on certain types of junk food) just yet. But if the state gets desperate enough for monies (or thinks it is), that may change. If you think it’s theft to have to pay income tax, how much more theft must it be to threaten someone with starvation if they won’t let you have a tenth of their food bill every time they go to the grocery store.

As for Ohio college grads wanting to stay in Ohio rather than leave, look again at Memphis. It’s a rathole. Crooked politicians settle themselves in for decades at a time, devastate the city and then disappear into the night. I just witnessed a HS friend, via Facebook, relocate from Memphis to Minneapolis because she has two small children and could not stand the thought of raising them in Memphis. Almost no one I went to school with who is still in or near that town has anything nice to say about it–or about most of the rest of the state either. If they didn’t have family right there, or friends they really cared about, or if a job offer came from elsewhere that was too good to be true, they’d probably all leave. Some already have.

Not having an income tax probably wasn’t what devastated the city, but it sure isn’t saving it either.

If this is what you want for Ohio, sir, knock yourself out. Don’t count on it solving anything though. I’m sorry you don’t like the poor paying fewer taxes than you do, but making it harder for them to survive isn’t going to solve anything.

And before you say “Florida”, allow me to point out that they’re only keeping their heads above water because of tourism. They have a lot more of it than Tennessee does. We have even less, because no one outside this state thinks of Ohio as a typical vacation destination. I doubt the casinos will change that very much.

We need better thinking from third parties and better options than this one if a significant number of Americans are ever going to defect from Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Hate to say it, but it’s true.