Michael Barone of the Washington Examiner explains why new census data suggest the 2010s could line up more closely with President Trump’s vision of America than with his predecessor’s.
The nexus between high taxation and domestic outflow is plain when you look at percentages. Domestic outmigration was 5 percent of 2010 population in Illinois and New York, 4 percent in New Jersey and Connecticut (which General Electric left behind for the former Taxachusetts, which cut taxes sharply in the 1990s). In only three other continental states was outmigration more than 2 percent.
Domestic inflow was 4 and 5 percent of 2010 population in Texas and Florida, and also in the Pacific Northwest and five Mountain states (Colorado, Nevada, Arizona, Idaho, Montana). It was even higher, 6 percent, in North Dakota and South Carolina. …
… All of which suggests a counterintuitive hypothesis: The patterns of internal and immigrant migration of 2010-17 looks less like Barack Obama’s ideal America and more like Donald Trump’s.
The flight from high-tax to low-tax states, diminished by higher-skill immigration, the fracking boom in North Dakota, and the decline in hip Vermont: You might even say Trump started winning even when Obama was still in office.
