taxes and change

This morning's Trib article about the proposed increase in the real estate transfer tax and a related item on Toni's blog reminded me of when I lived in New Hampshire. Migration across the border to escape some of the reach of the Tax-achusetts bureaucracy was increasing. Lots of folks who live in Tax-achusetts shop in NH, because it has no sales tax.

The tide of population shift that started in earnest while I lived there has continued, as evidenced by the change in New Hampshire politics. The place was scary-conservative when I first moved there in 1987. I never would have guessed that things would change enough for the state to elect a female Democrat as governor and that increasing numbers of independent voters would vote Democrat, to the point that NH became a blue state in the last presidential election. Taxes can have interesting secondary effects.

I don't know that things would shift to the same degree here. I know some people who have moved from Chicago or suburbs to Indiana or Wisconsin for economic reasons. Metra and the South Shore make that more feasible than it might otherwise be in our congested Chicago-Gary-Kenosha mega-sprawl.

If Chicago continues to get more expensive for the average person, it
might be Indiana and Wisconsin's gain and our loss.