Whatever the game may be, Parry borrows tax refugee fear talk from Glencoe Glenn Gruenhagen

Back in May, Bluestem caught Glenn Gruenhagen going wild with some talk about tax refugees when it posted Glenn gone wild: Gruenhagen's baseless talking point about tax refugees fleeing OR & MD.

Today, I opened the online version of the Austin Herald to discover that Suddenly Socialist Mike "I Have Needs" Parry has picked up Gruenhagen's baseless talking point and taken it on a royal pilgrimage across Southern Minnesota.

There's also a wonderfully scrambled sports metaphor, in which Parry says the ball is in Dayton's court, while also being placed on the fifty-yard line by Brodkorb's caucus. If the needy state senator figures out what the game is, perhaps someone will let the governor know.

His visitation with the citizenry of Spamtown is commemorated in GOP’s Parry: Dayton’s move, as well as with a marvelous photo that begs for 'shopping by the Divine Tild. We learn that Parry won't raise taxes on the wealthy:

Parry said the conservative majority was not willing to compromise to the point of raising taxes for the top two percent of earners in the state, particularly because that tax strategy has backfired in other states.

“What the governor wants is a 2 percent increase on the highest wage earners,” Parry said. “Maryland raised taxes on the upper income earners in 2008, and they had a 30 percent decrease in their tax returns in that bracket.

“The wealthiest can move their money wherever they want to.”

Since the Republicans have decided that recycling talking points, regardless how debunked, is the game plan (whatever the game may be), Bluestem will go back to the debunking cited in the May post.

Over at BlueOregon, Executive director of the Oregon Center for Public Policy Chuck Sheketoff noted in Facts Go Missing: The Unsubstantiated Tale of the Fleeing Maryland Millionaire:

. . .Instead of circulating stories founded on supposition, the Senate Republican Office would do better to distribute the analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP),Where Have All of Maryland’s Millionaires Gone? Nowhere – They’re Probably Just Not Millionaires Anymore. (PDF).

ITEP examined the preliminary tax return data released by the Maryland comptroller — who acknowledged that not all the data is in yet, particularly for high-income earners — and found that the data fail to support the Wall Street Journal’s claim:

[A]s a result of legislation enacted in 2007 and in 2008, income tax rates for affluent Marylanders were higher this past year, not just for residents with taxable incomes over $1 million, but for individuals with taxable incomes above $150,000 and for families with incomes over $200,000. Consequently, if it is the case that wealthier taxpayers respond to changes in income tax liability by changing their state of residence, one would expect to see that response not just for taxpayers with incomes above $1 million, but, to some degree, among all affected taxpayers. The Comptroller’s preliminary data suggest that this is not the case.

With the exception of “millionaires”, the number of returns in the affected ranges of taxable income appears to have grown between 2007 and 2008. Given recent economic events – and, in particular, the widely-anticipated decline in income from capital gains, which are received almost exclusively by the very wealthiest residents of each state – a far more likely explanation for the alleged disappearance of Maryland’s millionaires is that, for 2008 at least, they are no longer millionaires. Instead, their incomes may now fall in lower ranges of the distribution, thus potentially accounting for some portion of the increase in the number of returns in those ranges.

In other words, analysis of the preliminary data from Maryland fails to support the assertion that a tax increase on the wealthy will cause them to flee.

And that's just Maryland; Sheketoff takes a look at claims about tax refugees from other states Parry doesn't specifically mention, deftly dismissing them.

Over at Across the Great Divide, Charlie Quimby suggest that you Don't Look to Rich or Business for Salvation. He writes:

For years, Growth & Justice has been looking for and failing to find strong evidence that Minnesota is losing jobs, wealthy residents and businesses due to corporate and personal income tax rates.

Just last month, the Council on State Taxation, an association made up largely of corporate tax attorneys, released a study [PDF] by Ernst and Young that says differences in tax rates are not a main factor influencing businesses to build or hire in one state over another — and that Minnesota ranks 10th best in terms of the competitiveness of our investment tax climate.

Despite this — and absent more than anecdotal evidence of business flight — political figures, business executives and their hired guns always come back with the same line: Higher state tax rates kill jobs and drive job creators and wealth out of Minnesota. . . .

Check out his analysis of the business version of Parry's broader claim, while Bluestem waits for Parry to settle on a single unified sports analogy.

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Photo: Scary Parry trying to get a grip on something. Photo by Matt Peterson at the Austin Herald.

Related post: Glenn gone wild: Gruenhagen's baseless talking point about tax refugees fleeing OR & MD.

Comments

[Susan Misgen]

Workers' compensation is a job killer. Eight years of Pawlenty's "it's fixed" attitude along with Steve Sviggem leading Labor and Industry (shake of dice to get that job) have left work comp in the scrap heap. Call the 800 number and it'll hang up on you. There are significant fees for some unknown surcharge (not a tax, of course). Add that to the highest rates (triple and double that of neighboring states). It's not the taxes. It's work comp, which ought to be a rider on health insurance policies.