By Bill Mattox, JMI Resident FellowTags: State Income Tax, Sports, Reagan, Oil SpillNo, I’m not really interested in seeing the President of the Miami Heat run for Governor. But in the aftermath of Pat Riley’s brilliant move to use the tax advantages of earning in Florida to lure LeBron James and Chris Bosh to his NBA team, it strikes me that our state’s leaders ought to be using this same selling point to attract other economically-productive citizens to our state.After all, LeBron & Co. are going to stimulate all sorts of economic activity in Florida. Ticket sales. Jerseys. Concessions. Parking. Hotel stays. Broadcast advertising. And so on.And guess what? Much of that economic activity will generate significant tax revenues for the state. Which will prove – once again – the counter-intuitive lesson of the Reagan Revolution: allowing people to keep more of their earnings typically leads to greater economic activity and higher tax revenues.Or as they will soon say in Miami, “A rising LeBron lifts all boats.”Sadly, rather than waging a campaign to encourage economic producers in high-tax states to “follow King James to Florida,” some grandstanding Florida officials would rather spend their time calling for special sessions of the Legislature so that they can exploit the BP oil spill for political gain.Look, I hate the oil spill as much as the next guy. But I also hate record unemployment rates in our state. And the man with the oiliest hair in Florida (Pat Riley) just put a lot of people back to work by doing something our Governor ought to consider a top priority – convincing job-creating leaders to move to “America’s income-tax-free paradise: FLORIDA!”Related Blogs:
“Tax-Free Recruiting” (July 7)
“NBA Superstars ‘Net’ More in Florida” (July 2)
2010
