Taxes, States | featured news

According to the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce, since the passage of Prop 30 in the November election, California-based company relocation inquiries have doubled, possibly tripled, in Central Texas. West Coast entrepreneurs feeling the personal financial stress of an out-of-control state budget and tax policy have heard Texas’ message, and they’re responding.

Republicans in the Congress attacked each other on Tuesday over their leadership's "fiscal cliff" offer to Democratic President Barack Obama as a group of governors visited the White House to voice concern about the impact on the states of the year-end tax-and-spending deadline.

College students clash with administrators over steeply rising tuition. Public employees shut down statehouses amid cuts to pay and retirement benefits. Teachers and social welfare advocates protest budget cuts. Lawmakers struggle to cope with sharp declines in tax revenue.

State governments across the country are laying off teachers, closing public libraries and parks, and reducing health care services, but there is one place they could get $23 billion if they could only agree how to do it: Internet retailers such as Amazon.com.

New York isn't North Korea, but it's the closest thing you'll find in the U.S. -- at least according to a new report from a libertarian think tank.A Mercatus Center study has pegged New York as the country's "least free" state, 49 slots behind "Live Free or Die" New Hampshire. Its authors gave the state particular abuse for its taxes, "by far the highest" in the country, according to their methodology.

Tax income has been outpacing forecasts — good news as Sacramento struggles with a $15-billion budget deficit. GOP leaders are already using it as fodder against Gov. Brown's proposed tax increases.

In a recession, state lawmakers are taxing personal vices. It’s good for you, they say, but it’s really better for their budgets.