State and Local Tax Burdens in Three States

Kevin Drum is not happy with California’s spend and borrow governor. An interesting set of comments followed with one person saying we Californians have a high state and local burden. Given the recent spat between Huckabee (former Arkansas governor) and Romney (former Massachusetts governor), maybe a little data is in order.





Courtesy of the Tax Foundation handy information, we have plotted their measure of the tax burden for each state for the period since 1996. It does seem that the tax burden did rise in the latter part of Governor Huckabee’s Administration, but it is not as high as California’s. And the Tax Foundation is not counting the deferred taxes created by the spend and borrow but never tax attitude of Governor Schwarzenegger.