Barone Relates Growth to Taxes

We've talked about the new census numbers just out and what they may mean for our nation's politics. Now Michael Barone, no mean demographer himself, has noted a relationship between states' tax rates and their population growth. See what he says in a column for Town Hall:

Growth tends to be stronger where taxes are lower. Seven of the nine states that do not levy an income tax grew faster than the national average. The other two, South Dakota and New Hampshire, had the fastest growth in their regions, the Midwest and New England. Altogether, 35 percent of the nation's total population growth occurred in these nine non-taxing states.

The two biggest gainers were Texas and Florida, both no-income-tax states. Correlation does not prove causation, but it certainly raises a strong suspicion these phenomena are related.