Republicans should celebrate the state tax-cut revolution and the federal tax policy that has encouraged it.

Dan notes the continued exodus of U-Haul trucks from California as more people move out of the state than move in, which he has covered before. He also notes the top five states that gained in the U-Haul report: South Carolina, Texas, North Carolina, Florida, and Tennessee. It’s hard to not notice the tax policy differences between the losers and the gainers.

Of the five leading growth states in the U-Haul report, three have no individual income tax (Texas, Florida, and Tennessee) and one has a flat tax (North Carolina at 4.25 percent).

Of the five worst-performing states, four have income-tax rates that top out at 9 percent or higher: Massachusetts (9 percent), New Jersey (10.75 percent), and New York (10.9 percent), and California (13.3 percent).

Nine states, all with Republican-controlled legislatures, cut their income tax rates effective January 1: Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, and West Virginia. All nine saw their 2024 U-Haul growth ranking either increase or stay the same compared to 2023.

Obviously, tax policy is not the only factor affecting people’s decisions on where to live, but year after year, the states losing people tend to be high-tax and the states gaining people tend to be low-tax. It’s more than mere coincidence. And it will redound to Republicans’ benefit in the Electoral College, as reapportionment transfers House seats and presidential electors to the higher-growth states, which tend to be Republican-governed.

One factor that contributes to this trend was the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act’s $10,000 cap on the state and local tax (SALT) deduction. Because some residents of high-tax jurisdictions could no longer write off the entire value of their state and local tax burden on their federal returns, they had to face more of the consequences of Democrats’ high-tax policies. Eliminating the SALT deduction entirely would help offset the costs of continuing the tax cuts in the TCJA that expire this year and would make Democratic governors and state legislators fully responsible for their own fiscal recklessness. Yet Trump has said he wants to raise or remove the cap.

Republicans should celebrate the state tax-cut revolution and the federal tax policy that has encouraged it. The American people are voting with their feet for lower-tax states and rejecting the blue-state tax-and-spend model.