The Cities (and states) that Liberalism Ruins

NRO's Rich Lowry comments that "Detroit is a stark statement on the failure of urban liberalism". Now we learn that Detroit has earned the distinction of having the lowest high school graduation rate of the fifty largest cities in the country, coming in at a disgraceful 24.9%.

It goes beyond that. Looking at domestic migration rates i.e. how many people move from one state to another, a pattern emerges that is an illustration of why the Berlin Wall was built. People are moving from high tax and regulation states to lower ones. It comes as no surprise to anyone but the left that states like Michigan, Illinois, New York and New Jersey have the highest amount of residents leaving for greener pastures. When the Hawaiian government can chase out 12% more residents than it gained in less than fifteen years, you would think a light bulb would go off in someone's head. The Tax Foundation posted a great April Fools send up of clueless governors on this subject.

These people are moving to places like Florida, Texas, Nevada and New Hampshire. Those four states are some of the few that have no income tax, among other benefits to the productive. And many of them aren't moving that far. New Hampshire gained 6.1% in net domestic migration from 2000-2004 while Massachusetts lost 6.6%. Visit the fast growing town of Nashua that sits on the northern border of Massachusetts and is within commuting distance of Boston and the high-tech I-128 corridor to see how incentives matter. The same trend can be seen in Nevada and Arizona as they accept more and more California refugees.

Unfortunately a lot of liberals are moving too and taking their bad ideas with them. They're also oblivious of what caused them to move in the first place.

It took Rudy Guilani, a conservative by New York standards, to repair some of the damage done by his predecessors. But even he couldn't solve the city's systemic problems that cause taxpaying citizens and businesses to flee, leaving behind an even higher percentage of New Yorkers living off of the public teat. Detroit is just the latest and most glaring example of liberal failure. Conservatives and Libertarians need to spend more time pointing out the empirical evidence that's right in front of everyone's nose.