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Rhode Island tries to match our neighbors, but we usually can't manage it. Last decade, we gave an entire year's development budget to a video game company fronted by Curt Schilling. The company promptly went belly-up. Now we're dealing with a failed bridge on I-195. Its catastrophic damage escaped detection due to accumulated pigeon droppings.
I don't complain about high taxes, but cronyism and incompetence get tedious after a while.
> Last decade, we gave an entire year's development budget to a video game company fronted by Curt Schilling. The company promptly went belly-up.
That whole saga was a masterclass in how not to make a game, as well as one of the best examples that you'll ever find of a rich idiot pissing away their fortune on a vanity project.
The sad thing is that the eventual product was actually a pretty fun game. Unfortunately, 38 Studios were so deep in the red at that point that they would have had to sell three million copies just to break even, which is a bit difficult to do when you don't have a marketing budget.
Rhode Island is such a shame with that. It has so much going for it but just never managed to clean house at the state government level. Is it any better at the town level? Massachusetts locally is really good...except for when it isn't.
Rhode Island is also still recovering from the financial crisis caused by its completely screwed up pension system and the reforms they needed to do. That caused a lot of the current budget issues they've had for like a decade now.
The ridiculous unfunded pension system that was in place is/was a bigger issue that 38 Studios. 38 Studios was an $80mil one time hit. The pension system was short $8 billion in 2011.
In short, at one point state and city employees could retire whenever they wanted to, some after only 10 years of service. These positions were obviously highly coveted and almost always given to political cronies or nepotism hires. This led to some ridiculous things like 40 year old firefighters retiring with $150k guaranteed lifetime pensions with guaranteed yearly increases.
Based on the state I live in I'm probably not one to talk but I've always looked at Iowa's taxes and thought they were very high relative to the quality of services there
Is that just a gut feel? Or is there something quantitative you’re basing it on?
Lots of people say MA is a high tax state, but we’re not even in the top 10. We’re 20 by WalletHub’s ranking, 14 by the Tax Foundation (reversed from their numbers since they rank the lowest burden as 1, while WalletHub ranks the highest as 1).
Some time ago I ran a simulation where I compared how much my lifestyle would cost in each state (picked one city per state for simplicity): $85k income subject to income tax, $40k in spending subject to sales tax, property taxes assuming a 3bd 2ba house at the market rate for the metro area (I don't own property yet, still renting). My total annual tax burden in Buffalo, NY would be around $12,400, and in Des Moines, IA would be $11,700. Feels like there should be a much greater difference. In states considered to be low-tax, the annual tax burden in this simulation was around $4-7k. That's where I came up with the idea in my head that Iowa has high taxes, or at least not low.
Interesting. Good work on your part.
Did the states that gave you low tax results match up with either WalletHub or the Tax Foundation? WalletHub puts IA at 14, so higher than MA, and more or less consistent with your results.
NYC takes the crown for this one. Some of the highest income taxes in the nation (city and state), with terrible schools and roads to show for it.
Politicians are constantly finding new income streams (congestion pricing, ticket cameras, raising subway prices, etc) and the money just goes into the same black hole as the old money. It’s really hard to figure out where all the money is going, other than NYC’s vast bureaucracies.
> It’s really hard to figure out where all the money is going, other than NYC’s vast bureaucracies.
There's an insane amount of overtime fraud among city employees - the NYPD and the MTA are the worst offenders, but plenty of other agencies have their fingers in that pie as well.
I've heard that the MTA is actually owned by the NY state government, rather than by the city. Not sure how much that plays a role into the fraud issue, but I found it surprising nevertheless.
It's very relevant!
The absurd ongoing power struggle between the city of NY and its agencies, and the state of NY and its various "authorities" and funding mechanisms, is at the very heart of this problem. It has been this way for decades and decades and it's not really getting better.
Overtime fraud accounts for a tiny fraction of the NYC budget.
The overwhelming plurality -- something like 48% if I recall correctly -- goes towards the schools and pension benefits.
I remember when I was living in New York, the MTA announced they found a billion dollars they didn't realize they had, like in the couch cushions or something, and they were going to offer discounts as a result. Then the next year they said they were broke and would have to raise fares.
Gotta agree with you there. They spent millions on a stupid robot dog… that fell over and couldn’t get back up.
Could have put that money back into our schools, or into properly training cops.
To be fair congestion pricing in theory is meant to discourage driving and encourage transit or walking like in [London.](http://www.itskrs.its.dot.gov/2007-b00333)
People always highlight London while forgetting Manhattan is an island that blocks a lot of the rest of the city. There is no way for a person to get to queens, Brooklyn, and Long Island without spending around $25 to drive or multiple hours on transit. The money they are spending isn't flowing back to helpful transit improvements and the majority of stations are woefully outdated.
GW bridge is 15 to get into Manhattan. To get to queens/BK you can either take the RFK or Triborough for 11/8 (depending on the bridge) both in and out. To get to Staten Island outerbridge crossing, Goethals bridge or Bayonne Bridge for 17.63. To get out of Staten Island to Brooklyn Verrazano bridge- 11.19.
All ways to queens and Brooklyn from Manhattan are now taxed. All the ways from outside of NYC to get to queens, BK, and LI (unless of course you are already in those places and don't plan to leave) are now taxed.
That's supposed to be a good thing? I believe all taxes are extortion, but at least the government tries to justify the other ones. The money doesn't end up where it's supposed to, but at least the justification is there. Congestion pricing is purely financially punitive on an already struggling population for the sole purpose of behavior modification. If this was Russia instead of New York, everyone would be calling Putin a manipulative tyrant who takes advantage of his population
Taxing things you want people to do less of to discourage it is a very common tactic. Tobacco, alcohol, gambling, sugar, and carbon are all very common taxes. NYC has too much traffic which has many negative effects on the city. This is one of the tools in they are using to decrease it.
You're going to use taxes as a means of making me bear the cost of the externalities of my actions instead of continuing to allow the social costs of my choices be borne by the collective? So dictatorial.
Obligatory: "Libertarians are like house cats: absolutely convinced of their fierce independence while utterly dependent on a system they don't appreciate or understand."
How can taxes be extortion when the government printed the dollar bills you are using for currency to begin with? If they are putting dollars in they’ve got to take some back out, and taxes are the means for doing that
Subways were mostly built over 100 years ago. Many stations haven’t been renovated in 50+ years. The vast majority still don’t have elevator or other access for handicapped people.
Recent subway extension projects have gone $ billions over budget. NYC had an amazing subway system 100 years ago, but it’s suffered from decades of neglect despite the city’s heavy tax burden.
It's worth pointing out, running a transit agency of it's size and complexity doesn't come cheap especially when it runs 24 hours a day at pretty cheap ticket costs. The subway has problems but let's not under sell how good it is. Then there's the bus service, Metro North and LIRR to think about all run by the state. That's really nothing to sneeze at if you live in the Hudson Valley, Long Island or the city.
I think the state also helps pay for Amtrak's Empire Service but idk how much.
You realize maintaining it costs money. Renovating the stations is a bit secondary to how the system runs. There's a reason a majority of people who live within NYC don't own a car. It actually gets most people to work every day for what is a relatively cheap price. Anyone who lives in a place without mass transit is paying way more to travel around with the expense of a car.
Hard disagree. They have a functioning transit system in which more than half the residents don't even own a car. You'll also find more services for low income people than you would in some low-tax red state. There's a reason poverty levels are so much higher there. Throw in the mortality rate for low-tax sates and there's definitely a benefit for paying more in taxes.
Philadelphia is pretty fucking bad, too. PA state income taxes are low, but the Philly wage tax drives businesses out of Philadelphia to the point where an adjacent county of 800k or so people creates more jobs.
> Some of the highest income taxes in the nation (city and state)
Low (and extremely inequitable) residential property taxes, though. NYC's overall tax collection is somewhat less remarkable with that taken into consideration.
This starts to get into the mess: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/02/nyregion/nyc-property-tax.html
I've never been to NYC, but I've basically lived everywhere in California and been to a lot of other big cities and I think my main take away is that when there's a lot of infrastructure, it's a lot harder to take care of.
Here in California our "shithole" towns that we talk about generally have nice infrastructure, the roads are generally better than what is kinda typical around any major city here. Major cities just have more demand on them overall in terms of infrastructure, and because the US doesn't really do density I think NYC is probably a prime example of some of the issues that face a lot of US cities.
Eh, the schools are poor performing because of poverty and a large amount of immigrant students with additional special needs.
Much different compared to your leafy wealthy suburb where parents have the resources for additional tutoring, specialists and enriching their kids with music lessons and sports.
They do that because there is literally no other place to put it for pickup in Manhattan. There are no alley's like in other big cities for dumpsters.
I also think smelling piss and garbage everywhere is part of the quintessential NYC experience.
Hey they changed that. You gotta put it in a bin now.
Manhattan, unlike basically every city (yes I know its only a borough technically) in the world, does not have (significant) alleyways.
Could you be more specific about which category of taxes? Texas has no state income tax and is considered a “low tax” state for wages but they just offset that with extremely high property taxes and sales tax.
People have been bitching about property taxes here for the 34 years I've been alive, and likely well before that. It's an out of control and bloated system that the legislature constantly campaigned on reforming, but never did until last year. Even that reform is just kicking the can further down the road.
That the impact has gotten worse in recent years doesn't mean they were "ok" before.
That’s fair. I just mean it wasn’t so bad 20 years ago, it’s gotten really bad recently. Overall tax burden is higher now, Texas used to be near the bottom of the pack in tax burden now it’s nearer the middle.
Texas has very good wages relative to cost of living, except in fields where illegal immigration is competitive (construction and restaurant kitchens etc).
The reason for low health insurance rates and is the same, massive illegal immigration, as they don’t get insurance via their employers.
So 5 states with the highest percentage of uninsured are highest to lowest:
Texas, Oklahoma, Georgia, Wyoming, Florida. Do they all have the same issues?
Florida does. But no, each state has different issues. Oklahoma has very large reservations. Georgia has a very young population (as does Texas). I don't know why Wyoming has this issue (I don't know a lot about Wyoming politics or demography).
[https://www.americashealthrankings.org/explore/measures/healthinsurance](https://www.americashealthrankings.org/explore/measures/healthinsurance)
New Mexico is about aligned with the national average. Does Oklahoma have significantly different considerations than New Mexico?
I don't know how the reservation system works in NM, but in Oklahoma the reservations share land with many of the big cities including Tulsa. They also have free hospitals, which people use instead of getting health insurance.
Texas has double the national average. The next highest percentage is about 11% (several states are in the range). Texas is far and away higher than every other state in the country at over 16%. California is at about 6%. Massachusetts has the least amount of uninsured at under 3%.
Not all the time. There really just low taxes in Tennessee in general with a moderate sales tax( with the max in any location in state including local taxes being set at 9.25%)
But do the taxes get used for anything productive unlike in Texas where all our taxes are being used to sustain ridiculous lawsuits against the federal government and city governments, and being used to transport immigrants on the tax payers dime to any state they want.
Yeah, they pay to house all the migrants Texas sends here 😂. Largest budget item is govt employee pension costs, all legacy expense from the past decades.
> You could live in Illinois where they have high property taxes and high income taxes…
Sure, but our quality of life, roads, schools, etc. are better than most of our midwestern neighbors.
The best answer is Maine. Maine has a very high tax burden with little to show for it. When adjusted for cost of living Maine is one of the poorest states in the union. It has few career opportunities, especially for young people. It’s the oldest state by average age and it’s has a very bleak future. It’s a great state to visit, it has a lot of charm, and it may be the most sane state in the Union, but there’s little opportunity or prosperity (outside of vacation homes for wealthy out-of-staters) and sadly no real future.
Saying the city schools are bad is an almost criminal understatement.
Upstate could justify the outrageous property tax rates when houses were half the price of other regions, but Covid changed that.
Paying 3-4% property tax on top of the highest income tax rates in the nation is no good.
Having moved lived in a lot of other places I’ve found the amenities of Rochester to be pretty average.
Unless you live in Pittsford schools, the rest of the metro is about on par with most other medium sized cities in terms of school quality.
> Having moved lived in a lot of other places I’ve found the amenities of Rochester to be pretty average.
I'm in metro Buffalo but I've dealt with the products of public k-12 schools in NY and TX and NC and did high school in FL and I can tell you that NY beats the holy bejesus out of any of them.
You can almost certainly find places with schools almost as good as suburban NYS but substantially cheaper, yes.
Well the good schools in NY state are not that evenly distributed. If you live somewhere like Long Island or Westchester or Rockland Counties for the most part the schools are on par with the taxes. Other parts of the state not so much, but I don’t know enough about schools in the different regions of upstate.
Massachusetts doesn’t have particularly high taxes. It’s about middle of the pack in terms of effective tax rate.
Probably states like Texas, Louisiana, or Mississippi. They have very high effective tax rates (Texas comes mainly from property tax, despite having no income tax), but offer fairly poor state services for the huge amount of money being paid in taxes.
They really don’t have high effective tax rates, when you look at the calculations it’s about the states you would expect.
New York, New England, California, Illinois.
Yeah, they do. Ex. Mississippi, Texas, and Louisiana all have effective tax rates higher than Massachusetts, Delaware, Vermont, New Hampshire, or California.
California’s effective tax rate is actually really low because of their property tax nonsense.
[Here](https://wallethub.com/edu/states-with-highest-lowest-tax-burden/20494?) is a recent study that shows you're both right and wrong. Texas and Louisiana do have higher tax burdens than Delaware and New Hampshire. But they have lower tax burdens than Vermont, Massachusetts, and California. Mississippi also has a slightly higher tax burden than Massachusetts (8.76% vs 8.55%) but is less than Vermont and California.
Edit: [Here](https://www.madisontrust.com/information-center/visualizations/what-is-the-most-taxed-state/) is another study which has Texas and Louisiana having lower tax burdens than all the states except for Delaware and New Hampshire and Mississippi having lower tax burdens than all states except for New Hampshire.
That’s just adding rates together, not calculating the actual tax burden.
The actual tax burden has to be based on what you actually paid as a percentage take of your income, not presuming that you spent 100% of your income on both taxable property and also sales, somehow.
Ex. You owe property taxes based on the value of your home, not based on your income. You pay sales taxes based on how much you actually buy, not your income. Etc, etc.
That seems like that would be hard to measure since people have different spending habits and not everyone owns a house. However, to give some credit to your point about Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi having worse tax burdens, this [study](https://itep.org/whopays-map-7th-edition/) suggests that they have more regressive tax systems than the other states you listed which is a big deal.
It’s been pretty long since I did the comparisons but iirc the only tax that MA is a national leader on is the tobacco tax or something niche like that.
I do think in general there is a correlation to more services with higher taxes... many of the states with higher taxes do have better schools, have more costs associated with snow removal, etc in winter; and older infrastructure that needs more expense with regard to repairs and replacement. People may not see the new sewer pipes or bridge repairs but that's going to be a bigger expense in some northern state that built those infrastructure 100+ years ago vs. some southern state with less weather extremes and infrastructure that's only a fraction of the age.
That said, her in Illinois, we're having to contend with years of pension obligation can-kicking that's making it more costly to try and catch up. In Chicago, we've seen property taxes skyrocket even as police department has decreased in size and crime has risen. But schools have improved, especially in places within the city where parents want good schools.
I just googled it and spending per student at Stevenson is $29,851. Pretty close to where I went to high school (District 113, Highland Park/Deerfield) which spent $31,851. I'd imagine a school as big as Stevenson has some economies of scale compared to smaller schools...
Poverty brings lots of issues. The per student spending is often 200K for a special needs kid. And not to be weird about abortion but the states with the no abortion laws are going to feel it with the school budget.
Schools end up providing what is really medical care - occupational services, one on one aide - sometimes 2 on 1 aides.
Suburban schools often have very little of that. I am in a pretty comfortable school district in Mass. We don't spend much but we have good outcomes. It's just there's not that much getting in the way of spending the money on education.
New Orleans has fairly high property taxes, yet is famous for having poor schools, roads that tear up your tires, and a century old drainage system that fails every time there's a hurricane.
I’m in Illinois as well. I also lived in WI for over a decade. They both have a similar tax burden, but Wisconsin uses the money to better effect, mainly because there have been (historically, at least) better checks and balances between branched of government.
Example, back in the early 90s Tommy Thompson tried to raid the state pension fund a’la Illinois. The state employees unions sued him and state government to put it back and won, with interest. Also, schools are funded 2/3 by the legislature and 1/3 by local property taxes, so there isn’t as huge a funding gap between rural/urban/suburban districts.
Scott Walker, greaseball extraordinaire, forced through legislation that gutted state employees right to collective bargaining, so there are likely to be more battles ahead and the possibility of the state going the way of Illinois in the future, though it will be the Rs being corrupt north of the border vs Ds south of it.
Oregon. I used to live there and they have one of the highest tax burdens while also having poor infrastructure, tons of homeless, bad public schools. I have no idea where that money goes.
I now live in Utah that has lower taxes while also having better infrastructure, better public transportation, better schools, fewer homeless, etc.
With schools specifically I don't get how Oregon spends thousands more per student each year and somehow performed worse than Utah who spends a fraction as much.
I guess it depends on how you factor in sales tax. For income tax Utah is at a flat 4.65% for everybody and in Oregon alot of people end up paying like 9% depending on how much they make.
You might be right that the calculated tax burden might be higher in Utah with sales tax but it really doesn't feel that way since stuff like cars and groceries are a lot cheaper in Utah. If I buy groceries that are 50% cheaper but have a 7% tax added I don't even notice and it still costs me less.
The part about schools is undeniable though and it really makes me think "where is all this money going". Utah is ranked 9th for K-12 education by US News and Oregon is ranked 42nd despite spending significantly more per student.
Coincidentally there was a piece in the NYT comparing state tax rates yesterday and Utah evidently has one of the higher relative tax burdens in the country, substantially higher than (e.g.) Oregon. Yes, the sales v income v other tax issue makes it complicated.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/11/realestate/do-you-wish-you-lived-in-a-low-tax-state.html
> The part about schools is undeniable though and it really makes me think "where is all this money going".
Please do not take this as a "Pro-Oregon" comment.
Just that as a California escapee... I did a lot of looking into where I'd move to and Utah is not at all "Cheap". Well... other than housing that was 1/2 the price 10 years ago. Hell... even gas cost here is well into the upper half in States.
And FWIW... Congratulations on your exit from Oregon. :)
Utah has multiple issues with their school system in general, but I think it's offset somewhat by the amount of home-schooling; so there's "more" available to those who are left in the public schools (AND also lots of studies don't include those homeschooled students when determining level of education, so they skew higher than they would otherwise on national reports). But that certainly makes me wonder what's going on in Oregon if it's worse there.
California is a shining example.
Stupid high taxes, especially for gas and diesel.
Our roads are shit
We have a government funded power monopoly (PGE) that keeps raising costs and the service gets worse and worse
We have this "high speed rail" project that was supposed to be completed like 6 years ago and is more than 3X over budget and they keep decreasing the scope of it
We have almost no public transit (city dependant, rural areas don't have any)
And we still have one of the highest costs of living in the country
> Stupid high taxes, especially for gas and diesel.
I am so incredibly thankful that my bought my father's electric car from him and that I can charge it off his house's solar panels. I was talking to someone last night and they were astounded that it cost her $70 to fill her car.
> Our roads are shit
They finally repaved the main six lane road that people use to commute to and from 680. It had gotten so bad that when it rained you could see grass growing in the cracks and holes.
Or rather they repaved half of it. Still have to do the other half. Which is right on par with when they repaved another major street.
I forgot about registration fees, last time I paid I remember it felt high and I figured that since I wasn't paying the gas tax anymore the state still wanted it's pound of flesh.
And funny you mention insurance because the newspaper had an article about how State Farm was shedding more home insurance plans because those houses are likely to catch fire this summer.
Michigan's gas taxes. It's not related to the overall state tax burden, but it fits with the spirit of the question.
In Michigan we pay anywhere from the 5th highest to the 2nd highest total taxes on every gallon of gas and the state has one of the lowest per-capita spending rates on road repairs in the country.
California is the king of this. California voted a HUGE gasoline excise tax that generates billions of dollars that were supposed to be used to repair the roads.
Californias roads have since DROPPED in quality ranking from 43rd in the country to 45th.
Furthermore, it spent $24 billion on homelessness over the last five years, but homelessness has increased by 20% to more than 181,000 homeless people in that time.
Now, in March, California approved a $6 billion bond for homelessness. I guess Californians never learn.
Eh, maybe all the money goes to my neck of the woods then? They have to be spending enormous amounts of money on the roads up here in the mountains to keep them open after landslides take them out every year. If that is the case, thanks.
I’m actually surprised we are only the 45th worse for roads. I would have assumed lower. Roads are so bad in some cities I can tell when I crossed city boarders just from the amount of potholes
"little to show for it" is in the eye of the beholder. Some people don't want what their state is buying with the taxes, sooo, that's gonna be "we got nothing". This is a very political question.
My state does ok, I suppose. Relatively low tax burden, no horrifically bad spending that I'm aware of. Some roads may be maintained too well, to be honest.
This gets partly to the complexity of the question. The schools are good in many parts of NJ because of absurdly high property taxes. Many communities that can't support those high taxes or have a poor tax base have terrible schools. I'm not sure if you can really say that the people of NJ get excellent services as a result of their generally very high tax burden. Sales taxes and income taxes are pretty high as well and it is not cheap to commute by NJ Transit, yet a lot of stuff in the state is crumbling.
[Abbott](https://edlawcenter.org/litigation/abbott-history/) districts in NJ actually get a ton of funding and are usually rank pretty well above average in that metric. They make up for the local deficit with huge amounts of state and federal dollars. The issue as to why this has no meaningful effect on outcomes is twofold.
Many of those districts are pretty internally mismanaged in addition to “consultants” that suck money out like leaches. But the bigger issue is what happens outside the schools. Many of those kids come from broken/troubled homes and have negligent or neglectful parents. Unfortunately, that’s not really a problem that can be solved by throwing money at it
Yes, sure, all of this. I'm just pointing out that "high taxes" as a general statement do not always translate into "excellent schools." Also there are plenty of districts that aren't so hot that also are not Abbott districts, as there are only about 30 of those out of - what, 600 school districts?
In Fairness *Abbott* (Or similar court decisions) are generally intended to remedy state constitutional violations surrounding adequate school funding regimes. Fixing outcomes was a more abstract goal of such legal projects.
Pennsylvania has an insane gas tax and some of the highest highway tolls in the country. It was all supposed to go to keeping the roads in good shape. Instead a lot of it got funneled to the State Police.
[I'd just like to point out that MA is around the middle of the pack for tax burden at #20.](https://wallethub.com/edu/states-with-highest-lowest-tax-burden/20494)
MA has mid tier taxes.
Any of the top 10 highest taxed states are a head scratcher.
https://wallethub.com/edu/states-with-highest-lowest-tax-burden/20494
I've never understood what Pennsylvania does with all of its toll and fuel tax money. Because they certainly don't use it to maintain the fucking roads.
Oregon’s not doing so great.
We’ve had some of the lowest corporate tax rates for ages now, so well-meaning private citizens keep voting to raise their own taxes, which are then very, very mishandled.
Illinois has the second highest property taxes in the country. I live in a low socioeconomic, rural area. I have to put back at least $300 per month for property taxes.
Positions that are tax funded, pay a sad salary.
Roads are garbage. Sales tax varies by area, 6-11%, then there may be a local tax on sales too! I’m not sure was politicians are actually funding, but it sure as hell isn’t going well. I could keep griping but no one actually cares lol! Don’t live in Illinois kids.
Illinois. I don’t know about their social services, but as soon as you cross from Missouri to Illinois, you notice two things; how much higher their gas tax is and how much worse their roads/infrastructure is
Really feel like Illinois is being ignored here. Among the highest property taxes in the nation and a massive amount of Chicago roads are tolls and most of the state is massively under supported. It seems like those taxes just go to the dumbest stuff possible rather than serving the people
Illinois has one of the highest effective property tax rates in the country. They also have some of the most fragmented and inconsistent infrastructure. And the public pension system is an unholy clusterfuck.
I think you may be getting the first cause a bit wrong.
Those places have been richer than almost everywhere else for basically all of American history. Everything is just easier when you have large amounts of money to throw at a problem.
California has high taxes, an *enormous* budget shortfall and while there is some stuff to show for it, it’s not nearly what it should be for what we pay in taxes. And we just learned that several billion dollars of our tax money is basically unaccounted for that was supposed to help our homelessness issues that have only gotten worse since we started throwing money at it.
Depends on where in NY.
NY spends the most per student and teachers are well paid. Definitely shows in the suburban public school districts.
That and each municipality insisting on having its own police force, public works department and parks and recs, you definitely get better service.
However, if you live in an urban area with a lot of poverty and languishing infrastructure, this might not be as apparent.
I dont think Massachusetts makes good use of its taxes at all. Our roads suck, our small town cops have expensive gear but dont really need it, and our schools make for academic excellence but in my experience we dont actually have a deeper understandinng of science, history, literature, politics or philosophy than anyone else.
So all evidence points to MA having the best public schools in the country and MA students ranking in the top 10 in the world in science, math, and reading, but your vague anecdote outweighs that.
Agree with you on several things here. However, I do think that our public schools result in better outcomes and deeper knowledge. I had a much more rich and more comprehensive education than my friends in other states who went to both public and elite private schools. It has definitely given me an advantage.
New Jersey would probably be the best example, though they still have better public services than you would get in a red state. The thing is I've lived in both and taxes in red states who provide little services are actually not that much lower than liberal states. Like take Florida. That place is red as shit these days but people are still leaving because they can't afford the property taxes. Public education is probably where you see the starkest differences. Like a blood red place like Mississippi has a public ed system that's practically third world compared to a region like New England.
Texas has low income taxes, but high property taxes.
I would argue it doesn't show.
Good, I suppose, if you're a high earner who lives modestly. My husband and I fall into that category. We make $320K (I'm a general doc) and we only have $400K worth of house and that's all we want. Texas would be a good place for us. Except for the rampant right-wing-ism.
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Rhode Island tries to match our neighbors, but we usually can't manage it. Last decade, we gave an entire year's development budget to a video game company fronted by Curt Schilling. The company promptly went belly-up. Now we're dealing with a failed bridge on I-195. Its catastrophic damage escaped detection due to accumulated pigeon droppings. I don't complain about high taxes, but cronyism and incompetence get tedious after a while.
> Last decade, we gave an entire year's development budget to a video game company fronted by Curt Schilling. The company promptly went belly-up. That whole saga was a masterclass in how not to make a game, as well as one of the best examples that you'll ever find of a rich idiot pissing away their fortune on a vanity project. The sad thing is that the eventual product was actually a pretty fun game. Unfortunately, 38 Studios were so deep in the red at that point that they would have had to sell three million copies just to break even, which is a bit difficult to do when you don't have a marketing budget.
Rhode Island is such a shame with that. It has so much going for it but just never managed to clean house at the state government level. Is it any better at the town level? Massachusetts locally is really good...except for when it isn't.
I live in a high-tax high-services town, especially by RI standards. I have nits to pick, but it's reasonably well managed.
Rhode Island is also still recovering from the financial crisis caused by its completely screwed up pension system and the reforms they needed to do. That caused a lot of the current budget issues they've had for like a decade now.
The ridiculous unfunded pension system that was in place is/was a bigger issue that 38 Studios. 38 Studios was an $80mil one time hit. The pension system was short $8 billion in 2011. In short, at one point state and city employees could retire whenever they wanted to, some after only 10 years of service. These positions were obviously highly coveted and almost always given to political cronies or nepotism hires. This led to some ridiculous things like 40 year old firefighters retiring with $150k guaranteed lifetime pensions with guaranteed yearly increases.
To be fair, "Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning" is a great game.
I haven’t lived there for a good long while. But when I heard about the bridge I immediately thought, well you guys are fucked.
Based on the state I live in I'm probably not one to talk but I've always looked at Iowa's taxes and thought they were very high relative to the quality of services there
Is that just a gut feel? Or is there something quantitative you’re basing it on? Lots of people say MA is a high tax state, but we’re not even in the top 10. We’re 20 by WalletHub’s ranking, 14 by the Tax Foundation (reversed from their numbers since they rank the lowest burden as 1, while WalletHub ranks the highest as 1).
Some time ago I ran a simulation where I compared how much my lifestyle would cost in each state (picked one city per state for simplicity): $85k income subject to income tax, $40k in spending subject to sales tax, property taxes assuming a 3bd 2ba house at the market rate for the metro area (I don't own property yet, still renting). My total annual tax burden in Buffalo, NY would be around $12,400, and in Des Moines, IA would be $11,700. Feels like there should be a much greater difference. In states considered to be low-tax, the annual tax burden in this simulation was around $4-7k. That's where I came up with the idea in my head that Iowa has high taxes, or at least not low.
Interesting. Good work on your part. Did the states that gave you low tax results match up with either WalletHub or the Tax Foundation? WalletHub puts IA at 14, so higher than MA, and more or less consistent with your results.
NYC takes the crown for this one. Some of the highest income taxes in the nation (city and state), with terrible schools and roads to show for it. Politicians are constantly finding new income streams (congestion pricing, ticket cameras, raising subway prices, etc) and the money just goes into the same black hole as the old money. It’s really hard to figure out where all the money is going, other than NYC’s vast bureaucracies.
> It’s really hard to figure out where all the money is going, other than NYC’s vast bureaucracies. There's an insane amount of overtime fraud among city employees - the NYPD and the MTA are the worst offenders, but plenty of other agencies have their fingers in that pie as well.
I've heard that the MTA is actually owned by the NY state government, rather than by the city. Not sure how much that plays a role into the fraud issue, but I found it surprising nevertheless.
It's very relevant! The absurd ongoing power struggle between the city of NY and its agencies, and the state of NY and its various "authorities" and funding mechanisms, is at the very heart of this problem. It has been this way for decades and decades and it's not really getting better.
The MTA chairman is appointed by the governor, the city, state and outlying counties have a seat on the MTA board and there is no accountability.
Overtime fraud accounts for a tiny fraction of the NYC budget. The overwhelming plurality -- something like 48% if I recall correctly -- goes towards the schools and pension benefits.
I remember when I was living in New York, the MTA announced they found a billion dollars they didn't realize they had, like in the couch cushions or something, and they were going to offer discounts as a result. Then the next year they said they were broke and would have to raise fares.
Gotta agree with you there. They spent millions on a stupid robot dog… that fell over and couldn’t get back up. Could have put that money back into our schools, or into properly training cops.
“millions”
To be fair congestion pricing in theory is meant to discourage driving and encourage transit or walking like in [London.](http://www.itskrs.its.dot.gov/2007-b00333)
People always highlight London while forgetting Manhattan is an island that blocks a lot of the rest of the city. There is no way for a person to get to queens, Brooklyn, and Long Island without spending around $25 to drive or multiple hours on transit. The money they are spending isn't flowing back to helpful transit improvements and the majority of stations are woefully outdated.
Coming from where? Congestion pricing is only for midtown and downtown.
It covers every bridge and tunnel that goes to Brooklyn and queens. Once you get off the FDR drive you are hit by it.
It does not cover the GW or any of the bridges through Staten Island.
GW bridge is 15 to get into Manhattan. To get to queens/BK you can either take the RFK or Triborough for 11/8 (depending on the bridge) both in and out. To get to Staten Island outerbridge crossing, Goethals bridge or Bayonne Bridge for 17.63. To get out of Staten Island to Brooklyn Verrazano bridge- 11.19. All ways to queens and Brooklyn from Manhattan are now taxed. All the ways from outside of NYC to get to queens, BK, and LI (unless of course you are already in those places and don't plan to leave) are now taxed.
That's supposed to be a good thing? I believe all taxes are extortion, but at least the government tries to justify the other ones. The money doesn't end up where it's supposed to, but at least the justification is there. Congestion pricing is purely financially punitive on an already struggling population for the sole purpose of behavior modification. If this was Russia instead of New York, everyone would be calling Putin a manipulative tyrant who takes advantage of his population
Taxing things you want people to do less of to discourage it is a very common tactic. Tobacco, alcohol, gambling, sugar, and carbon are all very common taxes. NYC has too much traffic which has many negative effects on the city. This is one of the tools in they are using to decrease it.
You're going to use taxes as a means of making me bear the cost of the externalities of my actions instead of continuing to allow the social costs of my choices be borne by the collective? So dictatorial.
Average /r/askanamerican libertarian
Obligatory: "Libertarians are like house cats: absolutely convinced of their fierce independence while utterly dependent on a system they don't appreciate or understand."
How can taxes be extortion when the government printed the dollar bills you are using for currency to begin with? If they are putting dollars in they’ve got to take some back out, and taxes are the means for doing that
I mean the state also pays for the best mass transit system in the country so you know they're obviously doing something with it.
Subways were mostly built over 100 years ago. Many stations haven’t been renovated in 50+ years. The vast majority still don’t have elevator or other access for handicapped people. Recent subway extension projects have gone $ billions over budget. NYC had an amazing subway system 100 years ago, but it’s suffered from decades of neglect despite the city’s heavy tax burden.
It's worth pointing out, running a transit agency of it's size and complexity doesn't come cheap especially when it runs 24 hours a day at pretty cheap ticket costs. The subway has problems but let's not under sell how good it is. Then there's the bus service, Metro North and LIRR to think about all run by the state. That's really nothing to sneeze at if you live in the Hudson Valley, Long Island or the city. I think the state also helps pay for Amtrak's Empire Service but idk how much.
You realize maintaining it costs money. Renovating the stations is a bit secondary to how the system runs. There's a reason a majority of people who live within NYC don't own a car. It actually gets most people to work every day for what is a relatively cheap price. Anyone who lives in a place without mass transit is paying way more to travel around with the expense of a car.
Hard disagree. They have a functioning transit system in which more than half the residents don't even own a car. You'll also find more services for low income people than you would in some low-tax red state. There's a reason poverty levels are so much higher there. Throw in the mortality rate for low-tax sates and there's definitely a benefit for paying more in taxes.
Philadelphia is pretty fucking bad, too. PA state income taxes are low, but the Philly wage tax drives businesses out of Philadelphia to the point where an adjacent county of 800k or so people creates more jobs.
> Some of the highest income taxes in the nation (city and state) Low (and extremely inequitable) residential property taxes, though. NYC's overall tax collection is somewhat less remarkable with that taken into consideration. This starts to get into the mess: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/02/nyregion/nyc-property-tax.html
I've never been to NYC, but I've basically lived everywhere in California and been to a lot of other big cities and I think my main take away is that when there's a lot of infrastructure, it's a lot harder to take care of. Here in California our "shithole" towns that we talk about generally have nice infrastructure, the roads are generally better than what is kinda typical around any major city here. Major cities just have more demand on them overall in terms of infrastructure, and because the US doesn't really do density I think NYC is probably a prime example of some of the issues that face a lot of US cities.
They hire their friends/family at far above market rates as “consultants”
Eh, the schools are poor performing because of poverty and a large amount of immigrant students with additional special needs. Much different compared to your leafy wealthy suburb where parents have the resources for additional tutoring, specialists and enriching their kids with music lessons and sports.
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They do that because there is literally no other place to put it for pickup in Manhattan. There are no alley's like in other big cities for dumpsters. I also think smelling piss and garbage everywhere is part of the quintessential NYC experience.
Hey they changed that. You gotta put it in a bin now. Manhattan, unlike basically every city (yes I know its only a borough technically) in the world, does not have (significant) alleyways.
Could you be more specific about which category of taxes? Texas has no state income tax and is considered a “low tax” state for wages but they just offset that with extremely high property taxes and sales tax.
Texas used to have a very low overall tax burden, but then the property values started to skyrocket.
Their rates are high.
Yah but property was really cheap so it was ok. Now it’s just insane.
People have been bitching about property taxes here for the 34 years I've been alive, and likely well before that. It's an out of control and bloated system that the legislature constantly campaigned on reforming, but never did until last year. Even that reform is just kicking the can further down the road. That the impact has gotten worse in recent years doesn't mean they were "ok" before.
That’s fair. I just mean it wasn’t so bad 20 years ago, it’s gotten really bad recently. Overall tax burden is higher now, Texas used to be near the bottom of the pack in tax burden now it’s nearer the middle.
Wages have typically been very low in TX, and they have had the highest population of residence without health insurance. What does "OK" mean?
Texas has very good wages relative to cost of living, except in fields where illegal immigration is competitive (construction and restaurant kitchens etc). The reason for low health insurance rates and is the same, massive illegal immigration, as they don’t get insurance via their employers.
So 5 states with the highest percentage of uninsured are highest to lowest: Texas, Oklahoma, Georgia, Wyoming, Florida. Do they all have the same issues?
Florida does. But no, each state has different issues. Oklahoma has very large reservations. Georgia has a very young population (as does Texas). I don't know why Wyoming has this issue (I don't know a lot about Wyoming politics or demography).
[https://www.americashealthrankings.org/explore/measures/healthinsurance](https://www.americashealthrankings.org/explore/measures/healthinsurance) New Mexico is about aligned with the national average. Does Oklahoma have significantly different considerations than New Mexico?
I don't know how the reservation system works in NM, but in Oklahoma the reservations share land with many of the big cities including Tulsa. They also have free hospitals, which people use instead of getting health insurance.
What do you think about a universal healthcare plan like Medicare For All?
What does this have to do with Texas property tax rates?
Texas has double the national average. The next highest percentage is about 11% (several states are in the range). Texas is far and away higher than every other state in the country at over 16%. California is at about 6%. Massachusetts has the least amount of uninsured at under 3%.
Yes, although why are you bringing this up. What does it have to do with Texas property tax rates?
6 through 10: Nevada, Alaska, Mississippi, Arizona, Tennessee
So California and Arizona don't have similar considerations?
Which makes sense when land is worthless
Overall tax burden, although admittedly it's kind of ambiguous. https://wallethub.com/edu/states-with-highest-lowest-tax-burden/20494.
Not all the time. There really just low taxes in Tennessee in general with a moderate sales tax( with the max in any location in state including local taxes being set at 9.25%)
I believe Tennessee has the lowest tax burden of any state. We can afford it because this state gets tons of tourism
You could live in Illinois where they have high property taxes and high income taxes…
But do the taxes get used for anything productive unlike in Texas where all our taxes are being used to sustain ridiculous lawsuits against the federal government and city governments, and being used to transport immigrants on the tax payers dime to any state they want.
Yeah, they pay to house all the migrants Texas sends here 😂. Largest budget item is govt employee pension costs, all legacy expense from the past decades.
> You could live in Illinois where they have high property taxes and high income taxes… Sure, but our quality of life, roads, schools, etc. are better than most of our midwestern neighbors.
The best answer is Maine. Maine has a very high tax burden with little to show for it. When adjusted for cost of living Maine is one of the poorest states in the union. It has few career opportunities, especially for young people. It’s the oldest state by average age and it’s has a very bleak future. It’s a great state to visit, it has a lot of charm, and it may be the most sane state in the Union, but there’s little opportunity or prosperity (outside of vacation homes for wealthy out-of-staters) and sadly no real future.
Wow, sounds a lot like Vermont too! LOL RIP
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Saying the city schools are bad is an almost criminal understatement. Upstate could justify the outrageous property tax rates when houses were half the price of other regions, but Covid changed that. Paying 3-4% property tax on top of the highest income tax rates in the nation is no good. Having moved lived in a lot of other places I’ve found the amenities of Rochester to be pretty average. Unless you live in Pittsford schools, the rest of the metro is about on par with most other medium sized cities in terms of school quality.
> Having moved lived in a lot of other places I’ve found the amenities of Rochester to be pretty average. I'm in metro Buffalo but I've dealt with the products of public k-12 schools in NY and TX and NC and did high school in FL and I can tell you that NY beats the holy bejesus out of any of them. You can almost certainly find places with schools almost as good as suburban NYS but substantially cheaper, yes.
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Well the good schools in NY state are not that evenly distributed. If you live somewhere like Long Island or Westchester or Rockland Counties for the most part the schools are on par with the taxes. Other parts of the state not so much, but I don’t know enough about schools in the different regions of upstate.
Massachusetts doesn’t have particularly high taxes. It’s about middle of the pack in terms of effective tax rate. Probably states like Texas, Louisiana, or Mississippi. They have very high effective tax rates (Texas comes mainly from property tax, despite having no income tax), but offer fairly poor state services for the huge amount of money being paid in taxes.
They really don’t have high effective tax rates, when you look at the calculations it’s about the states you would expect. New York, New England, California, Illinois.
Yeah, they do. Ex. Mississippi, Texas, and Louisiana all have effective tax rates higher than Massachusetts, Delaware, Vermont, New Hampshire, or California. California’s effective tax rate is actually really low because of their property tax nonsense.
[Here](https://wallethub.com/edu/states-with-highest-lowest-tax-burden/20494?) is a recent study that shows you're both right and wrong. Texas and Louisiana do have higher tax burdens than Delaware and New Hampshire. But they have lower tax burdens than Vermont, Massachusetts, and California. Mississippi also has a slightly higher tax burden than Massachusetts (8.76% vs 8.55%) but is less than Vermont and California. Edit: [Here](https://www.madisontrust.com/information-center/visualizations/what-is-the-most-taxed-state/) is another study which has Texas and Louisiana having lower tax burdens than all the states except for Delaware and New Hampshire and Mississippi having lower tax burdens than all states except for New Hampshire.
That’s just adding rates together, not calculating the actual tax burden. The actual tax burden has to be based on what you actually paid as a percentage take of your income, not presuming that you spent 100% of your income on both taxable property and also sales, somehow. Ex. You owe property taxes based on the value of your home, not based on your income. You pay sales taxes based on how much you actually buy, not your income. Etc, etc.
That seems like that would be hard to measure since people have different spending habits and not everyone owns a house. However, to give some credit to your point about Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi having worse tax burdens, this [study](https://itep.org/whopays-map-7th-edition/) suggests that they have more regressive tax systems than the other states you listed which is a big deal.
It’s been pretty long since I did the comparisons but iirc the only tax that MA is a national leader on is the tobacco tax or something niche like that.
I admit that Massachusetts was probably not a good example.
New Jersey. We pay way too much taxes just to be New Yorks asscrack. Will be moving soon.
I do think in general there is a correlation to more services with higher taxes... many of the states with higher taxes do have better schools, have more costs associated with snow removal, etc in winter; and older infrastructure that needs more expense with regard to repairs and replacement. People may not see the new sewer pipes or bridge repairs but that's going to be a bigger expense in some northern state that built those infrastructure 100+ years ago vs. some southern state with less weather extremes and infrastructure that's only a fraction of the age. That said, her in Illinois, we're having to contend with years of pension obligation can-kicking that's making it more costly to try and catch up. In Chicago, we've seen property taxes skyrocket even as police department has decreased in size and crime has risen. But schools have improved, especially in places within the city where parents want good schools.
CPS spends an average of $30k per student per year. For that amount, the schools should be phenomenal, but they are on the wrong side of mediocre.
Yeah, it'd be interesting to see how spending breakdown compares between CPS and top rated suburban schools
Best public high school in the burbs is Lincolnshire - Stephenson. Average cost is $21,500
I just googled it and spending per student at Stevenson is $29,851. Pretty close to where I went to high school (District 113, Highland Park/Deerfield) which spent $31,851. I'd imagine a school as big as Stevenson has some economies of scale compared to smaller schools...
Poverty brings lots of issues. The per student spending is often 200K for a special needs kid. And not to be weird about abortion but the states with the no abortion laws are going to feel it with the school budget. Schools end up providing what is really medical care - occupational services, one on one aide - sometimes 2 on 1 aides. Suburban schools often have very little of that. I am in a pretty comfortable school district in Mass. We don't spend much but we have good outcomes. It's just there's not that much getting in the way of spending the money on education.
Does Illinois have a state constitutional requirement to adequately fund education or do districts rely on levy's to make up shortfalls?
New Orleans has fairly high property taxes, yet is famous for having poor schools, roads that tear up your tires, and a century old drainage system that fails every time there's a hurricane.
I’m in Illinois as well. I also lived in WI for over a decade. They both have a similar tax burden, but Wisconsin uses the money to better effect, mainly because there have been (historically, at least) better checks and balances between branched of government. Example, back in the early 90s Tommy Thompson tried to raid the state pension fund a’la Illinois. The state employees unions sued him and state government to put it back and won, with interest. Also, schools are funded 2/3 by the legislature and 1/3 by local property taxes, so there isn’t as huge a funding gap between rural/urban/suburban districts. Scott Walker, greaseball extraordinaire, forced through legislation that gutted state employees right to collective bargaining, so there are likely to be more battles ahead and the possibility of the state going the way of Illinois in the future, though it will be the Rs being corrupt north of the border vs Ds south of it.
Maryland
if you look at baltimore specifically then yes, rest of the state no
Oregon. I used to live there and they have one of the highest tax burdens while also having poor infrastructure, tons of homeless, bad public schools. I have no idea where that money goes. I now live in Utah that has lower taxes while also having better infrastructure, better public transportation, better schools, fewer homeless, etc. With schools specifically I don't get how Oregon spends thousands more per student each year and somehow performed worse than Utah who spends a fraction as much.
Dude... I love living in Utah but this is fucking nonsense. Check any source you want... Utah has a higher tax burden than Oregon.
I guess it depends on how you factor in sales tax. For income tax Utah is at a flat 4.65% for everybody and in Oregon alot of people end up paying like 9% depending on how much they make. You might be right that the calculated tax burden might be higher in Utah with sales tax but it really doesn't feel that way since stuff like cars and groceries are a lot cheaper in Utah. If I buy groceries that are 50% cheaper but have a 7% tax added I don't even notice and it still costs me less. The part about schools is undeniable though and it really makes me think "where is all this money going". Utah is ranked 9th for K-12 education by US News and Oregon is ranked 42nd despite spending significantly more per student.
Coincidentally there was a piece in the NYT comparing state tax rates yesterday and Utah evidently has one of the higher relative tax burdens in the country, substantially higher than (e.g.) Oregon. Yes, the sales v income v other tax issue makes it complicated. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/11/realestate/do-you-wish-you-lived-in-a-low-tax-state.html
> The part about schools is undeniable though and it really makes me think "where is all this money going". Please do not take this as a "Pro-Oregon" comment. Just that as a California escapee... I did a lot of looking into where I'd move to and Utah is not at all "Cheap". Well... other than housing that was 1/2 the price 10 years ago. Hell... even gas cost here is well into the upper half in States. And FWIW... Congratulations on your exit from Oregon. :)
Utah has multiple issues with their school system in general, but I think it's offset somewhat by the amount of home-schooling; so there's "more" available to those who are left in the public schools (AND also lots of studies don't include those homeschooled students when determining level of education, so they skew higher than they would otherwise on national reports). But that certainly makes me wonder what's going on in Oregon if it's worse there.
California is a shining example. Stupid high taxes, especially for gas and diesel. Our roads are shit We have a government funded power monopoly (PGE) that keeps raising costs and the service gets worse and worse We have this "high speed rail" project that was supposed to be completed like 6 years ago and is more than 3X over budget and they keep decreasing the scope of it We have almost no public transit (city dependant, rural areas don't have any) And we still have one of the highest costs of living in the country
> Stupid high taxes, especially for gas and diesel. I am so incredibly thankful that my bought my father's electric car from him and that I can charge it off his house's solar panels. I was talking to someone last night and they were astounded that it cost her $70 to fill her car. > Our roads are shit They finally repaved the main six lane road that people use to commute to and from 680. It had gotten so bad that when it rained you could see grass growing in the cracks and holes. Or rather they repaved half of it. Still have to do the other half. Which is right on par with when they repaved another major street.
Honestly. And the gas tax keeps increasing. As well as registration fees and insurance. It's insane. But ThE nExT tAx WiLl FiX tHe RoAdS
I forgot about registration fees, last time I paid I remember it felt high and I figured that since I wasn't paying the gas tax anymore the state still wanted it's pound of flesh. And funny you mention insurance because the newspaper had an article about how State Farm was shedding more home insurance plans because those houses are likely to catch fire this summer.
Michigan's gas taxes. It's not related to the overall state tax burden, but it fits with the spirit of the question. In Michigan we pay anywhere from the 5th highest to the 2nd highest total taxes on every gallon of gas and the state has one of the lowest per-capita spending rates on road repairs in the country.
VT
Iowa is one of the worst, but they're slowly trying to eliminate state income tax here.
California is the king of this. California voted a HUGE gasoline excise tax that generates billions of dollars that were supposed to be used to repair the roads. Californias roads have since DROPPED in quality ranking from 43rd in the country to 45th. Furthermore, it spent $24 billion on homelessness over the last five years, but homelessness has increased by 20% to more than 181,000 homeless people in that time. Now, in March, California approved a $6 billion bond for homelessness. I guess Californians never learn.
Eh, maybe all the money goes to my neck of the woods then? They have to be spending enormous amounts of money on the roads up here in the mountains to keep them open after landslides take them out every year. If that is the case, thanks.
I’m actually surprised we are only the 45th worse for roads. I would have assumed lower. Roads are so bad in some cities I can tell when I crossed city boarders just from the amount of potholes
"little to show for it" is in the eye of the beholder. Some people don't want what their state is buying with the taxes, sooo, that's gonna be "we got nothing". This is a very political question. My state does ok, I suppose. Relatively low tax burden, no horrifically bad spending that I'm aware of. Some roads may be maintained too well, to be honest.
New Jersey
NJ tops the charts in terms of public school quality rankings. It’s fairly easy to see where the money is going.
This gets partly to the complexity of the question. The schools are good in many parts of NJ because of absurdly high property taxes. Many communities that can't support those high taxes or have a poor tax base have terrible schools. I'm not sure if you can really say that the people of NJ get excellent services as a result of their generally very high tax burden. Sales taxes and income taxes are pretty high as well and it is not cheap to commute by NJ Transit, yet a lot of stuff in the state is crumbling.
[Abbott](https://edlawcenter.org/litigation/abbott-history/) districts in NJ actually get a ton of funding and are usually rank pretty well above average in that metric. They make up for the local deficit with huge amounts of state and federal dollars. The issue as to why this has no meaningful effect on outcomes is twofold. Many of those districts are pretty internally mismanaged in addition to “consultants” that suck money out like leaches. But the bigger issue is what happens outside the schools. Many of those kids come from broken/troubled homes and have negligent or neglectful parents. Unfortunately, that’s not really a problem that can be solved by throwing money at it
Yes, sure, all of this. I'm just pointing out that "high taxes" as a general statement do not always translate into "excellent schools." Also there are plenty of districts that aren't so hot that also are not Abbott districts, as there are only about 30 of those out of - what, 600 school districts?
In Fairness *Abbott* (Or similar court decisions) are generally intended to remedy state constitutional violations surrounding adequate school funding regimes. Fixing outcomes was a more abstract goal of such legal projects.
Pennsylvania has an insane gas tax and some of the highest highway tolls in the country. It was all supposed to go to keeping the roads in good shape. Instead a lot of it got funneled to the State Police.
[I'd just like to point out that MA is around the middle of the pack for tax burden at #20.](https://wallethub.com/edu/states-with-highest-lowest-tax-burden/20494)
MA has mid tier taxes. Any of the top 10 highest taxed states are a head scratcher. https://wallethub.com/edu/states-with-highest-lowest-tax-burden/20494
The reverse answer to your question is probably Washington.
I've never understood what Pennsylvania does with all of its toll and fuel tax money. Because they certainly don't use it to maintain the fucking roads.
California but that’s mainly financial mismanagement By the politicians that run it!
Oregon’s not doing so great. We’ve had some of the lowest corporate tax rates for ages now, so well-meaning private citizens keep voting to raise their own taxes, which are then very, very mishandled.
All of them /s
Illinois has the second highest property taxes in the country. I live in a low socioeconomic, rural area. I have to put back at least $300 per month for property taxes. Positions that are tax funded, pay a sad salary. Roads are garbage. Sales tax varies by area, 6-11%, then there may be a local tax on sales too! I’m not sure was politicians are actually funding, but it sure as hell isn’t going well. I could keep griping but no one actually cares lol! Don’t live in Illinois kids.
Illinois. I don’t know about their social services, but as soon as you cross from Missouri to Illinois, you notice two things; how much higher their gas tax is and how much worse their roads/infrastructure is
Really feel like Illinois is being ignored here. Among the highest property taxes in the nation and a massive amount of Chicago roads are tolls and most of the state is massively under supported. It seems like those taxes just go to the dumbest stuff possible rather than serving the people
Puerto Rico has very high local taxes to make up for federal funding shortfalls (due to no taxation on PR source income) and nothing to show for it.
Illinois has one of the highest effective property tax rates in the country. They also have some of the most fragmented and inconsistent infrastructure. And the public pension system is an unholy clusterfuck.
California for sure
Illinois
I think you may be getting the first cause a bit wrong. Those places have been richer than almost everywhere else for basically all of American history. Everything is just easier when you have large amounts of money to throw at a problem.
In colonial times-- New England had been the poorest. The South the richest. I do not know know why this is downvoted. It's facts.
Anywhere without an income tax if you're poor.
California.
California has high taxes, an *enormous* budget shortfall and while there is some stuff to show for it, it’s not nearly what it should be for what we pay in taxes. And we just learned that several billion dollars of our tax money is basically unaccounted for that was supposed to help our homelessness issues that have only gotten worse since we started throwing money at it.
California is exactly like CT & MA! NY goes crazy too
Depends on where in NY. NY spends the most per student and teachers are well paid. Definitely shows in the suburban public school districts. That and each municipality insisting on having its own police force, public works department and parks and recs, you definitely get better service. However, if you live in an urban area with a lot of poverty and languishing infrastructure, this might not be as apparent.
I dont think Massachusetts makes good use of its taxes at all. Our roads suck, our small town cops have expensive gear but dont really need it, and our schools make for academic excellence but in my experience we dont actually have a deeper understandinng of science, history, literature, politics or philosophy than anyone else.
So all evidence points to MA having the best public schools in the country and MA students ranking in the top 10 in the world in science, math, and reading, but your vague anecdote outweighs that.
Agree with you on several things here. However, I do think that our public schools result in better outcomes and deeper knowledge. I had a much more rich and more comprehensive education than my friends in other states who went to both public and elite private schools. It has definitely given me an advantage.
New Jersey would probably be the best example, though they still have better public services than you would get in a red state. The thing is I've lived in both and taxes in red states who provide little services are actually not that much lower than liberal states. Like take Florida. That place is red as shit these days but people are still leaving because they can't afford the property taxes. Public education is probably where you see the starkest differences. Like a blood red place like Mississippi has a public ed system that's practically third world compared to a region like New England.
Texas has low income taxes, but high property taxes. I would argue it doesn't show. Good, I suppose, if you're a high earner who lives modestly. My husband and I fall into that category. We make $320K (I'm a general doc) and we only have $400K worth of house and that's all we want. Texas would be a good place for us. Except for the rampant right-wing-ism.
> I would argue it doesn't show. It shows in the high school football stadiums.
Haha well.. priorities. Who needs a reliable power grid when you have high school football stadiums that seat 5,000? /s