Talking to an alien....

"Talking to someone who lives in a tax free state is like talking to an alien. They do not understand why humans want to pay state income taxes..."

Yesterday while coming home from coming from the fair, I was fired up. For many reasons. However, I always try to be nice to folks by striking up a good conversation. The couple sitting next to me on the bus were from Texas. They were vacationing all summer in Minnesota to enjoy our weather and lakes. Having lived in Austin all their lives, they found Minnesota attractive as well as fascinating.

We talked about our State Parks, our traffic, and many other subjects of interest. I then told them I had been at the fair working as a volunteer at a booth. The booth was owned by the Minnesota Taxpayer League. I explained to them what the League was all about. To fully explain our tax issues in this state, I needed to ask them a basic question. "Do you mind if I ask what your tax rate is in Texas?" They both then stared at me with a very strange look. "Taxes? We don't pay taxes. We never have."

That is when our conversation became strange. It was similar to talking to aliens. Neither the man nor his wife had any concept of what paying state tax was like. They had never paid a cent. Never. On the other hand, there has never been a year while I have been living in Minnesota that I have not paid taxes. Never. 

I continued, "But if you don't pay any taxes, isn't your state falling apart? Your roads must be in shambles." Again they looked at me strangely. "No, our roads are good. Although not perfect, many are better than some we have driven on in Minnesota. It seems like every year we come up here you folks have quite a few roads shut down for repair."

The strangest part of our conversation happened when I told him our Social Security was taxed. When I said that, the man looked at me with mouth agape. "That is just plain wrong" he said. Then he went on to say he could not imagine his or his wife's Social Security being taxed.

We went on to talk about quality of life, services and so on. It then struck me. Texas and Minnesota both seem to be good places to live. Except one pays taxes and the other does not. Oh to be fair, they do have a good size property tax. However this couple told me they would take that over paying state income tax any day of the week.

I have had this conversation before with liberals. About how if we did not have our tax rate our state would look like Alabama, Georgia or Arkansas. Funny thing is I have been to all three of those states. They looked fine to me. Then liberals will talk about the low high school graduation rates in lower taxed states. Another canard. Obviously they have not checked out the schools in North Minneapolis.

Once we got to our bus stop I said goodbye to this nice couple from Texas. I had given them some tips on some interesting things to do and see while in Minnesota. What they gave me in return was more dissatisfaction. Dissatisfaction with living in a very high taxed state. 

In seems that in this state, we pay huge taxes for one reason only - to support the the largess of our government. And to keep in growing. Bottom line - that is it in a nutshell.