The Aug. 10 letter from Reps. Nita Lowey, Jerrold Nadler and Steve Israel (all D., N.Y.)—under the headline "Should Federal Tax Consider the Local Cost of Living?"—is
the best illustration of why we are in the mess we are in as a country.
The reasons it is so expensive to live in the New York City
metropolitan area and in California: high taxes at the state, county and
city level; land use restrictions that limit a free market for housing;
rent control that has been enforced since World War II; extravagant
public employee compensation and retirement benefits; excessive social
welfare payments; subsidized housing, transportation and health care;
too many public employees (perhaps a quarter of the work force in New
York City works for some governmental entity); and a unionized
environment of payoffs and corruption that makes the cost of almost
everything higher than anywhere else.
What the Nadler
legislation wishes to do is use the tax code to institutionalize a
subsidy for statism and irresponsible behavior. This shows a lack of
personal accountability, a basic misunderstanding of economics and
demonstrates an entitlement mentality.
No one in Texas or
anywhere else should pay for the idiocy of New York and California.
Compare Texas to both states, and you will see one vibrant economic
power and two failed states.
Francis Rushford
Carlsbad, Calif.
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 