From New Hampshire at the Top to New York at the Bottom, Ranking Freedom at the State Level

September 5, 2016 by Dan Mitchell

Proponents of liberty generally are big fans of federalism. In part, this is simply an issue of “good governance” since both voters and lawmakers at the state and local level are more likely to actually understand the real issues in communities and be able to develop policies that are more sensible.

But we also like federalism because it’s relatively easy for people to move across state and local borders and this means governments have to compete with each other, both in terms of not driving away productive people and also in terms of not attracting those who want to mooch off the government.

The obvious implication is that if we can dramatically shrink the federal government so that it only handles the few (enumerated) powers envisioned by the Founding Fathers, that would give states far more authority to determine tax burdens and the degree of redistribution, and they would presumably do a better job because they would compete with each other for jobs and investment......To Read More....