Monday, April 5, 2010

You Get What You Pay For

Recently a friend told me about a friend of one of her friends, oh, let's call her Freeloader, who e-mailed her because she's considering moving back to the United States from London -- and she has her sights set on South Florida because of the low tax burden here. Florida ranks 31st in the nation for the number of days each of us must work to pay off our taxes, according to the non-profit organization The Tax Foundation -- far behind Minnesota, Freeloader's home state, which comes in with the 8th highest tax burden for the country.

Simple enough: you don't want to pay taxes, move to Florida.

But then Freeloader had another set of requirements:
What about the schools? she asked.
What about public transportation?
What about crime?

Looking at the e-mail, my friend scratched her head. Um, if you want good schools, reliable public transportation, and strong policing, you have to pay for them. Better move back to Minneapolis, she advised.

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