I'm tempted to develop a strategy of shorting publicly-traded Fortune 1000 companies with their corporate offices headquartered in Illinois, while longing any business based out of Texas. The right business decision is to relocate! Why to some companies stay? Getting $50 million in incentives to say in a high-tax state is not better than getting $100 million in incentives from Texas and no taxes.
Hmmm, let's see, maybe because its flat as a pancake, hot as hell, and full of mexicans, and oh yeah, EMRGlobal lives there.
It's not as if there are no costs associated with moving a business to a different state. That would involve relocated hundreds, if not thousands of employees. I would think for a major company like CAT for instance, it would cost probably $50mm alone just in legal expenses to make a move like that happen. Long term though, a move to a right to work state where taxes are low and businesses are respected is probably the smart thing to do...
Illinois is flat as a pancake, cold as hell, and also full of mexicans. Taxes in Texas though are a lot lower. It would pay for itself over the long run.
Texas is rapidly becoming a backwater. It's being propped up by federal largesse (ie, "socialism"), it's educational system is a complete and utter embarassement (only hire people without kids?), and in 20 years it'll likely be part of a Mexican desert, anyway. There are few US states where the image they portray to the ROTW is in such sharp contrast with the reality.
The reconquista is self-evident. The net transfer of payments *into* the state is a matter of fiscal record. Texas pioneered the practice of encouring "self study" to get kids off the school rolls to make test scores look better. Self-image: rabidly "free enterprise" and independent. Reality: fiscal ward of the state. Hope that helps...
This data is 12 years old nevertheless, I'm not going to spend time finding something more update. http://www.insidepolitics.org/heard/heard8999.html A new Tax Foundation study shows which states are the biggest beneficiaries of the federal government, measured by the amount of federal receipts returned to their state compared to tax dollars sent to Washington. The ratio is a measure of how much each state gets in return for its federal tax contributions. The higher the ratio, the more the state gets back in federal receipts. A ratio of $1.00 indicates that the state gets a dollar of federal receipts for each tax dollar sent to Washington. A ratio under $1.00 indicates the state receives less in federal dollars than it sends to Washington. The following analysis, which ranks the states from winners to losers, is based on 1998 data. The District of Columbia is the top gainer from the national government, while New Jersey is the biggest loser. At 0.95, it shows Texas receives less in federal dollars than it sends to Washington. On your second point, public education is the biggest joke in the country. Texas easily does a better job at education than Illinois, self-study or not. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=222737 Guaranteed you won't see the above happen in Texas.
Perhaps, most of these companies are on corporate welfare system, it really wouldn't be a matter, all tax payers foot for their bills. some of them need public funds injection constantly, there is no motive for them to save money for tax payers. North Dakota is only a better states than rest of them.
That's more than a decade old. Texas is now netting about $60B a year in federal welfare. The Tax Foundation and others have much material on this, if you're interested in digging.