From the underappreciated Robert A. Heinlein:

Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded- here and there, now and then- are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.This is known as "bad luck.".

The Wallstreet Journal notes the recent evidence for this truism.

"Rich States, Poor States," published in March, shows that Americans are more sensitive to high taxes than ever before. The tax differential between low-tax and high-tax states is widening, meaning that a relocation from high-tax California or Ohio, to no-income tax Texas or Tennessee, is all the more financially profitable both in terms of lower tax bills and more job opportunities.

Updating some research from Richard Vedder of Ohio University, we found that from 1998 to 2007, more than 1,100 people every day including Sundays and holidays moved from the nine highest income-tax states such as California, New Jersey, New York and Ohio and relocated mostly to the nine tax-haven states with no income tax, including Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire and Texas. We also found that over these same years the no-income tax states created 89% more jobs and had 32% faster personal income growth than their high-tax counterparts.

Did the greater prosperity in low-tax states happen by chance? Is it coincidence that the two highest tax-rate states in the nation, California and New York, have the biggest fiscal holes to repair? No. Dozens of academic studies -- old and new -- have found clear and irrefutable statistical evidence that high state and local taxes repel jobs and businesses.

Proving once again that you don't have to be an idiot to be a Democrat (or a Republican in name-only), but it helps.

The silliness has been repeated everywhere for generations, establishing a debilitating pattern. I had a recent visit from a friend from Ontario, Canada, who moved his business to Florida. He reminded me that when the New Democrat Party (orthodox socialist) took power in Ontario one of the humorous ironies was that the UAW, strong supporters of the NDP, discovered they were in fact the "rich" that needed soaking. Actual rich people had long left the province for friendlier tax climes, and between 1990 and 1995, the province sank into deep recession.

The absence of metaphorical milk cows never abates the left's appetite for social butter, so unsurprisingly, the crushing tax burden fell upon the middle class, many of whom are moving to Canada's friendlier tax clime--Alberta. In the end, what's left is a vast ocean of underachievers complaining of dwindling entitlements and paying ever-increasing taxes. Autoworkers became the new Kulaks (Ukrainian farmers who owned more than 24 acres of land "liquidated as a class" by Stalin...)

Fortunately, the bright-side of this sad state of affairs is that there will always be localities only too willing to extend the hand of friendship to talented people with assets...