Daily Times

What makes America an economically ingenious place is the competitive federalism model set forth by our Founding Fathers. They established our nation as the world’s largest ever free trade zone in which 50 states competing for jobs and people with varying economic and fiscal policies.

And boy have liberals come to hate that model. Why? Because it puts their policies of tax, spend, regulate and restrict on trial every day. We can see with our two eyes the stampede out of liberal blue states to conservative red states.

These trends are more important to point out today than ever before because Hillary Clinton wants to adopt a classic “blue state” model of economic revival – more government spending, higher tax rates on the rich and increased regulations – while Donald Trump would follow the “red state” course. That would mean lower tax rates, control of federal spending and regulations, and drilling for our bountiful and valuable energy resources. If Hillary’s vision for America makes sense, why has it failed in the states?

Two years ago I co-authored a New York Times best-selling book with Arthur Laffer, Rex Sinquefield and Travis Brown called the “Wealth of States.” We documented the overpowering evidence that states with low tax rates, less regulation, and with right-to-work laws have substantially and statistically significant higher rates of job and income growth. Red states on average tend to be a magnet for people and incomes, whereas many blue states – including most notably New York and California – are losing out big time in the internal migration game. By the way, I mean “red states” not as “Republican states,” but as a shorthand for states that adopt free market policies. I mean “blue states” as places with costly and highly-regulated state governments. Virginia once had one of the most pro-growth governors in America in Democrat Doug Wilder and then one of the biggest tax and spend governors ever in Republican Bob McDonald of Virginia. Party labels don’t matter. The policies do. We have found in our analysis that almost 1,000 people on net have been leaving high tax states for low tax states. This is well more than 3 million people a year voting with their feet against liberalism. It isn’t quite the same as the exodus after World War II from East Germany to West Germany, but the same phenomenon is in place. Sure, some blue areas of the country – like San Francisco and Denver – are booming, while some red states – like Mississippi – still have very low standards of living. But the general trend of decline in the blue regions and the rapid rise of the red regions is unmistakable.

Look at the states ranked at the top of economic performance by Alec, the state legislative group. Then compare those states, with the bottom 10 performers. Most of the states with the most job, income and population growth are conservative states, like Texas at the top of the list. Meanwhile, almost all the slowest growing states – New York, New Jersey, Michigan, Rhode Island – are those that have been traditionally run by Democrats. Rick Perry, the former governor of Texas, loves to point out, and Census data confirm, the Lone Star state (with no income tax) created more jobs from 2007-2014 than the other 49 states combined. If you think big government and high taxes are a path to prosperity, how in the world do you explain that one? Even with the oil recession, Texas is still doing fine.

No wonder Hillary Clinton is having a hard time convincing voters that her model for rebuilding the economy will work. It hasn’t worked anywhere in the country. Even California lost 1 million residents due to internal migration from 2005-14.

The New York Times recently disputed all this by arguing: “Despite what you may have heard, blue states are generally doing better.” They looked at life expectancy at birth, percentage of college graduates, median income (an inappropriate income per capita-type number), and number of patents per 1,000 people. No, no no. To find which states are going in the right and wrong directions, you have to look at how things are changing. Even The New York Times editorial admitted: “The gap between today’s red and blue states was enormous for much of the 20th century. It then narrowed substantially.” But these states made this progress by cutting taxes and regulation.