Will the "Yankee Tax" Save Red States?

Blue-State Refugees Threaten Jefferson's America

Legislation recently proposed in South Carolina has touched a nerve.  Nicknamed the “Yankee tax,” the law proposed by South Carolina state Senator Stephen Goldfinch would require new residents to pay up to $500 to move to the Palmetto State.  The charges would come in two $250 installments, for a new driver’s license and for vehicle registration.

Goldfinch explained, “Our quality of life has been diminished by the almost 4 million people that have moved here in the last decade.”  He added, “Everybody is concerned about their quality of life.”

While couched in fiscal terms, this legislation underscores an important effort by Red State Americans to defend their turf. 

The trends require such self-defense. Americans are on the move.  And this mass migration is changing the states they’re moving to.

Fed up with the high cost of living, chaos and left-wing politics of blue states in the nation’s largest cities, Americans are voting with their feet.  They’re leaving, pulling up stakes and moving to red states.  Many are relocating to rural America, the part of the country celebrated by our third president, Thomas Jefferson.

The latest statistics from the Census Bureau show California, New York, New Jersey, Michigan and Illinois—all blue states—lost a total of 4 million residents over the last decade.  U-Haul says the top destination states for those renting their trucks are the same color:  red.  Leading the pack are Florida, Texas, and Tennessee.

A study by North American Moving Company has the states slightly different, but the destination is fundamentally the same:  South, and Red.

More and more, the decision of where to move also reflects a political choice.  The real estate firm Redfin published a study confirming these trends and the politics driving them.  Redfin predicts “more migration for political reasons.” 

“We know people are leaving blue counties and moving to red counties,” says the chief economist at Redfin. “I think this will start to happen at the state level and at the neighborhood level.”  Surveying Americans who have moved recently to a new metro area, Redfin found that abortion laws play a role in defining which states Americans want to move to. 

To be sure, the cost of living is a major factor in these decisions.  Red states are generally more affordable places to put down roots.  Blue states along the coasts typically are more expensive, especially when taxes are factored in.

Technology and work-from-home corporate policies are allowing Americans to live outside large cities while receiving the same pay.  As the transmission of information has become more important to the economy than the manufacture of goods, a good wi-fi connection is the ticket to geographic independence.

The Industrial Revolution drove people from farmlands to cities.  Twenty-first century technology has reversed these trends.

But what does this mean to the red states absorbing all these blue-state refugees?

Red States Fight Becoming Purple

 “The mobs of great cities add just so much to the support of pure government, as sores do to the strength of the human body.”  So said Thomas Jefferson, and who in Red State America would take issue with him today?  One need not agree with his conviction that his rural neighbors plowing the Virginia soil were the “chosen people of God” to appreciate his implicit concerns about a redistribution of blue-state dwellers to red states.

Yes, this influx of new residents brings more electoral votes, and redistricting is increasing the voting power of red states.  But red states risk losing something crucial in the bargain.

When the newcomers fleeing the nation’s cities don’t adapt to their new surroundings, but try to change them, friction is inevitable.  Crime rates and basic civility are better in rural areas in part because the smaller number of people require folks to recognize one another’s humanity.  Even today, people in the country often wave from their vehicles as they pass another driver on two-lane roads. 

What if the Blue State refugees simply try to import their politics and values into Jefferson’s America?  That’s exactly what’s happening throughout America today.

College-educated professionals who move into red states to work remotely for their blue-state overlords carry with them the left-leaning values force-fed them in higher education.  Generally speaking, a greater number of college graduates in an area means more left-leaning politics.

When these blue-state escapees move into new areas to take advantage of less expensive real estate and the other amenities of Red State America, it is as one rancher in Utah said of the Californians moving in.  “People don’t like it where they are, so they come here and try to make it just like the place they left.”

It remains to be seen long term whether red states will absorb these newcomers and change them for the better, or whether it will be the rural areas themselves that change.  But those who believe they can leave behind our big cities and all their dysfunctions make a fundamental miscalculation when they insist on carrying along the blue-state values that fomented these problems.  They bring themselves with them.

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