If you were self reliant instead of state reliant for your retirement years’ funding, you would not have that problem.
Captain,
Public employee pension obligations are an albatross around the neck of taxpayers in every shrinking state. Politicians of yesteryear bought votes from public employees with the future taxes of poor fools who remain in shrinking states long after the politicians and their “clients” have moved on.
At the present time, Illinois pensioners make a bee-line to Florida, while a shrinking number of Illinois taxpayers are left funding the fun-filled lifestyles of pensioners sipping Mojitos on the beach.
If the State of Illinois were to propose a bankruptcy plan, I expect it would include a modification of all state pension obligations to condition payments to pensioners upon their post-retirement voluntary election of one of the following alternatives:
A “cram down” of their benefits, reducing their entitlements by 20% or more across-the-board;
A restriction on pension payments to only persons who still reside in Illinois at the time the pension distributions are made; or
A requirement that all Illinois pensioners living outside the state must continue to pay Illinois income taxes on all their income regardless of where else in the world they have moved.
Illinois may have to follow the example of the federal government in order to continue receiving revenues after people flee the state.
The US Congress created “handcuffs” to keep wealthy taxpayers from escaping US federal income taxes, so that they must continue to pay for US taxes even after moving out of the country.
Even renunciation of US citizenship does not absolve you of paying an “expat tax.”
The states with big fat pension obligations and shrinking populations will have to get creative if they don’t want to find themselves all alone in a shrinking-revenue wasteland.
Public employee pension obligations are an albatross around the neck of taxpayers in every shrinking state.
And some people love big giverment to solve all their problems.
Taxpayers should revolt at the theft of their property. The Boston Tea Party? The Storming of the Bastille?
Big giverment created the S&L Crisis.
Big giverment created unpayable student debt via lax student handouts.
Big giverment created the 2008 financial meltdown via home ownership for everybody whether they could afford it or not.
Big giverment created the current stock market bubble via the printing press.
Big giverment created the current inflation via COVID handouts.
Big giverment is trying to do more of the same with BBB.
Aided and abetted by the institutions that could benefit from such policies. But it could not have happened without the giverment initiatives in the first place.
An Illinois refugee — Where did you end up? A curious current resident, looking to get out.
We moved to Wisconsin because my wife wanted to be close to her Dad who is in his 90s. Last time I checked Wisconsin had the lowest percent of unfunded state liabilities while Illinois was the second highest (just behind New Jersey, IIRC).
Half of the people I used to employ in my company (does that make me a JC?) have since moved to Florida or Texas.
We have enough funds so that we can rent a place in Florida or Arizona during the winter months as the urge strikes us.
We leave in the winter as well,most years. Our tax burden is currently miniscule relative to when we were working,as we moved to an exburb of Chicago,on a lake about sixty miles south of O’hare. No state income tax,as our income is all retirement funds,and tiny($2400.00) property taxes relative to the rest of the state.
Well aware that our current tax situation cannot remain the same for long due to unfunded pensions.
Considering coastal southeast or New Mexico or Arizona,perhaps in later retirement.
DB2: “The Texas Public Policy Foundation has conducted two polls of registered voters to test attitudes between natives and non-natives. Its January 2020 poll of 800 registered voters found native Texans supported President Trump over Hillary Clinton by a 7-point margin compared to transplants, who supported Trump by a 12-point margin.”
The 95% confidence interval for an 800 person sample of a multiple million person population must be enormous. That aside, I can envision a major difference of opinion between the opinions of transplants brought in for tech versus those who arrive for oil/gas.
The 95% confidence interval for an 800 person sample of a multiple million person population must be enormous.
The size of the population they’re sampling is pretty much irrelevant once you get past 10 times the size of the sample.
However, 800 is a bit small. When I studied statistics mumble years ago, I believe we were told that in a two-option poll such as this it would take a sample size of a bit over 1,000 to get a 95% confidence interval of plus-or-minus 5%. And back then there wasn’t an actual movement to mess up political polls through random answers to pollsters.
Its January 2020 poll of 800 registered voters found native Texans supported President Trump over Hillary Clinton by a 7-point margin compared to transplants, who supported Trump by a 12-point margin." — The 95% confidence interval for an 800 person sample of a multiple million person population must be enormous.
Its a good reason to move to a state with a better debt situation.
Yep. I’ve been urging my IL friends to get out while they still can (with a decent price for their house). IL is special in that you never know what is buried in civil service contracts, they always seem to have some crazy surprises in there that cost more and more and more money. NJ is similar, but a little less corrupt, so they don’t have as many surprises coming later.
I doubt a zillionth of a percent of people looking to move bother to look at a state’s “debt load.”
So instead of calling it “debt load”, call it “property taxes”, while not identical, they are closely related over time. I wouldn’t be surprised if at least 50% of the people who are moving, and considered NJ (just as an extreme example), decided against it due to the ridiculously high property taxes. I don’t know how to measure this, or even if anyone has ever attempted to measure it.
