Tax Burden by State (2023) (Jackson, Greenville: middle-class, fit in, sales)

[viverlibre]

https://wallethub.com/edu/states-wit...x-burden/20494

Surprised the 'Sip is so high (19).

Some calculations are based on "percentage of income." Since we likely have the lowest income per capita, it moves us higher in the rankings.

[GrandviewGloria]

You've explained it. Despite the small incomes of Mississippians, the needs for services are not reduced. So, a higher percentage of those incomes would necessarily be diverted toward those state-provided services.

And that's BEFORE one considers that Mississippians tend to generate MORE need for those services. Driving like headless chickens, generates more need (all those various first responders rushing to accident scenes, are either employed by tax-supported entities, or are generally eventually reimbursed or subsidized with tax Dollars). The indiscriminate whelping-out of babies, is largely - eventually - paid for by taxes (prenatal, delivery, benefits, school lunches, summer feeding programs, free coats in winter, remedial programs, eventual jobfare in all its guises, carjackings, illegitimate babies begetting illegitimate babies while they're still in school and getting all those benefits).

My 'Cousin Crazy', who's an educator making more money than most lawyers (in a Southern City very much like Jackson), has earned those giant paychecks and giant looming pensions, because she "educates" persons identical to the classic Mississippian. She gets what amounts to COMBAT PAY. She has earned every cent, and more. Frankly, she would not have survived, were she not a psychopath, reared in a villa full of sociopaths - from her industrialist father to their disinterested maids. Her only glimpse of normalcy, came from watching the Huxtables, on TV. Like many psychopaths, Cousin Crazy actually thrives on the strife rampant in inner city schools. The byzantine plots against her, by school bureaucracies (which disfavor her, because while she's brown, she's not the right kind of brown), are SUPPLY, for her Stalinesque mind - all she has to hold-onto. Heaven forbid she should have to retire, because she'd have to replace real plots against her, with imaginary ones. Psychoteachers (the ultra-degreed/lightening-fast competent ones like her, who take up the slack created by the slow-moving Zombieteachers surrounding them) don't come cheap.

It costs way, way, WAY more, to educate 'The Left Side of the Bell Curve'.

'The Right Side of the Bell Curve', can do like Abraham Lincoln, and study alone in a cabin with only lamplight.

And Mississippi, with (in some years) the lowest average IQ of any state https://www.google.com/search?client...h=552&dpr=1.71, has a very expensive problem in perpetual need of fixing. That perpetual "fixing" costs more - a larger percentage of those small incomes.

Now, let's talk about HEALTHCARE. The fine folks running the world, want everybody (but themselves) to be expensively-sick. It's a form of slavery, for the lumpenproles to be mandatory consumers of expensive medical solutions. If they can make you diabetic, they've got you for life. If they can break your brain with psychotropic drugs, they've got you for life (hence "The Suicide Lady" who's now on Mississippi's free TV stations, subtly trying to railroad depressed children into "interventions": one prescription being all it takes....). More and more, it's some governmental entity paying for all that SICKCARE, with tax Dollars. The Oligarchy doesn't care where the money comes from.

If they can break your kidneys with carbs, they've got you for life. If they can destroy your circulatory system with "novel medical interventions", they've got you for life. If they can make your children autistic, they've got them for life. And frankly, from a Fascist Oligarch's viewpoint, a person too unintelligent to sidestep the Oligarchy's Health Traps, is of higher value than a smart person who avoids carbs/avoids avoidable medications/avoids "Safe & Effective!"/avoids driving like a headless chicken. As long as a person counts as a person, the Medical Industry (owned by the Facist Oligarchy) can wring money out of that person's existence (tax Dollars will reimburse...): the sicker the better.

Lower IQ = Sicker = More Costly (a situation deliberately fostered by "World Leaders")

Dowager Soybean Empress tells me, "That Suicide Lady hasn't said one word about avoiding sugar - much less avoiding rice or PUFA oils or wheat. She's selling something." And that something, along with all the somethings pushed by "Dr. Thrillkill with the ugly glasses and the Yankee accent", will be paid-for by Mississippians' taxes - as a higher percentage of Mississippians' incomes.

And then, there's CORRUPTION. As 'The Most Corrupt State', Mississippians' tax money is subject to a higher rate of rakeoff. Kingfish, of Jackson Jambalaya, once called Mississippi's bloated Education Bureaucracy, "The Perfumed Princes". Education consumes a huge percentage of tax Dollars. And most of those Dollars are squandered on/by the bureaucrats. But every facet of governmental expenditure, in Mississippi, is subject to a higher percentage of rakeoff - or outright theft.


While I'm kvetching, let's talk about the LABOR. What pops into my head, is the recent discovery of a Canton, Mississippi functionary, who, during his Day Job, at Nissan, was (allegedly, of course) caught passing catalytic converters over the fence. http://kingfish1935.blogspot.com/202...free-card.html Actually, that one pings under several headings, but I'll use it as an example of labor. Labor like that, is helping discourage new businesses from locating in Mississippi. And people like him, are why Mississippi has to expend tax Dollars attracting industry (money mostly wasted in harebrained schemes). Industries giving-up and leaving, cost counties and municipalities huge sums - dealing with abandoned physical plants, among other things. Greenville used to have around 80 factories. But LABOR like Kelvish, drove those industries away (or out of business).

That Nissan Auto Plant, a miracle Mississippi owes entirely to Madison Mayor Mary Hawkins Butler (she went to Sweden, and brought back Volvo, which was then eaten by a Ford/Nissan collaboration - hence the Nissan Plant - when built, the world's largest auto plant), is a bigger miracle than Mississippi deserves. It would be a pity, to see such a miracle squandered.

Incompetent/disinterested/selfish labor, has played no small part, in Jackson's infrastructure woes. Competent, motivated labor, would have fixed much of Jackson's infrastructure, as a matter-of-course - without asking bureaucrats. Competent labor, does more than spray herbicide, while maintaining public property (you cut the weeds, and don't leave litter lying-around). Competent labor takes the initiative to replace broken parts at water plants (even if they have to pay for the damn parts, themselves - and forego trips to strip clubs, in order to afford a $200 part, or a $100 gallon of some chemical). As a Jewish Girl, it's hard for me to say this, but German Prisoners of War, rebuilt/repaired/upgraded my friends' familes' Delta plantations, and made them profitable. (Then, Mississippi Labor tore them down, again).

And, after World War 2, German labor, thankful to have jobs, miraculously produced Volkswagens, despite having nothing to work with. They improvised. And they worked many hours more than they got paid for. That's what competent, motivated labor looks like.

Two generations of my uncles, struggled to expand tiny businesses, while in Mississippi. But as soon as they made it into the industrial zones north and east of Mississippi, they became industrialists. The difference was the labor.

It costs more, in Mississippi, to build or repair public infrastructure, due to the labor - thus, a higher percentage of total income, is required for government to supply basic infrastructure. The Bridge over Purple Creek, and Colonial falls, are great examples of how slow and how incompetent and how DISINTERESTED is Mississippi's Labor. https://www.city-data.com/forum/jack...al-circle.html

[stephenMM]

Keep in mind this data is arrived at by averaging things out. Each individual will pay less or more taxes depending on a lot of different variables. Just to give one example, a homeowner will pay property taxes but a renter won't. Some folks like to try and figure out how much a renter's rent goes toward the property owner's tax on that unit, but that's just a guess, it's impossible to know since it isn't ever separated out when they pay rent.

The real problem here is that Mississippi has a 7% tax on groceries, which is the highest in the country. The vast majority of states have 0 tax on groceries. So a poor person will pay a lot more percentage of their income out in food tax compared to someone w/ more income. This is really a tax on the poor, which is pretty crappy. I love Mississippi, but don't love the way the government operates, it's sorta ridiculous. Reminds me of a banana republic or the old plantation days, and good luck changing it because its an Old Boy network.

This isn't a Republican/Democrat thing either. Hawaii is massively Democrat and has an even worse tax structure. They don't tax groceries per se via a sales tax, but they have an excise tax. There is a way to deduct that by using a grocery tax credit, but everyone won't fit into the parameters that allow that. They tax the wealthy more than any other state, but everyone regardless of income is highly taxed in all other areas. Their banana republic status is absolutely entrenched. It operates on who you know and what your ethnicity is. Just go to any state office and pretty much all you will see working there are Hawaiians and Asians.

So if you compare Mississippi (one of the poorest states) with Hawaii (with has a large proportion of wealthy people combined with most other people having to work 2 jobs to cover the high cost of living), then Mississippi comes out looking pretty good.

[An Einnseanair]

Originally Posted by stephenMM

Keep in mind this data is arrived at by averaging things out. Each individual will pay less or more taxes depending on a lot of different variables. Just to give one example, a homeowner will pay property taxes but a renter won't. Some folks like to try and figure out how much a renter's rent goes toward the property owner's tax on that unit, but that's just a guess, it's impossible to know since it isn't ever separated out when they pay rent.

This is not true; renters do pay property taxes, but as you said it's buried in their rent. Single-home landlords (at least the smart ones) take all yearly expenses (mortgage principal, interest, maintenance, management, insurance, property taxes, then add on a market/profit buffer) and divide by 12 to set rent. For multi-unit housing it's a percentage based on size of unit. The per-unit rate is an estimate, but trust me, it's paid by the renter.

Originally Posted by stephenMM

The real problem here is that Mississippi has a 7% tax on groceries, which is the highest in the country. The vast majority of states have 0 tax on groceries. So a poor person will pay a lot more percentage of their income out in food tax compared to someone w/ more income. This is really a tax on the poor, which is pretty crappy. I love Mississippi, but don't love the way the government operates, it's sorta ridiculous. Reminds me of a banana republic or the old plantation days, and good luck changing it because its an Old Boy network.

While I agree that a 7% grocery tax is incredibly regressive and hurts the lower-middle-class more than anyone (the poor get food subsidies), a few percent here wouldn't swing the overall tax burden much. As an example, TN's grocery tax is close (varies by county... mine is 6.25%), and TN is waaaay down on the list. Lots of Mississippi's government is reminiscent of a "banana republic", tho.

Originally Posted by stephenMM

This isn't a Republican/Democrat thing either. Hawaii is massively Democrat and has an even worse tax structure. They don't tax groceries per se via a sales tax, but they have an excise tax. There is a way to deduct that by using a grocery tax credit, but everyone won't fit into the parameters that allow that. They tax the wealthy more than any other state, but everyone regardless of income is highly taxed in all other areas. Their banana republic status is absolutely entrenched. It operates on who you know and what your ethnicity is. Just go to any state office and pretty much all you will see working there are Hawaiians and Asians.

Agreed, but MS/HI is a bad example. Look at New Hampshire and Vermont. Virtually identical in size, demographics, and "blueness", and yet one is at the top of the list while the other is at the bottom. High taxes are caused by 1) massive investments in infrastructure to attract tourists (HI), 2) welfare/social programs for certain people (indigenous population of HI, people left in MS after decades of brain drain), and 3) corruption.