Back in May, the WSJ ran a piece about the “vanishing millionaires” of Maryland. In a nutshell, the state government of Maryland mandated an additional tax on households in the highest tax brackets, in an effort to raise state tax revenues. Surprise! There were a few thousand LESS millionaires living in the state come tax time, and tax revenues fell drastically.
And today we have “Praying for Big Bank Bonuses.”
File this under “I” for Irony. All those big, bad bonuses are actually good for something…tax revenues for state governments running massive deficits. The article approximates that “one in five New York state tax dollars come from Wall Street.” In New Jersey, the incumbent governor was just booted out, in part because of his inability to wrestle a deficit projected to reach $5 Billion by the next year. The numbers just aren’t adding up.
There are plenty of ways to spin this story. Here’s mine!
From Wikipedia: “Sometimes unintended consequences can far outweigh the intended effect.”
