There are several states that move from Karl Marx-like policies to Adam Smith-like policies and back again in a weekend. So for the states with huge volatility in their income tax policies over time, the differences in growth rates in those periods are really amazingly consistent with tax rates really mattering.

Let's take the nine states that have no income tax and compare them with the nine states with the highest income tax rates in the nation. If you look at the economic metrics over the last decade for both groups, the zero-income-tax-rate states outperform the highest-income-tax-rate states by a fairly sizable amount.

When you look at the world, everyone in the world who cares about his or her family wants to have a major portion of their assets in the United States because we are the growth country and the freedom loving country.

There are several states that move from Karl Marx-like policies to Adam Smith-like policies and back again in a weekend. So for the states with huge volatility in their income tax policies over time, the differences in growth rates in those periods are really amazingly consistent with tax rates really mattering.

What I'm not saying is that all government spending is bad. It's not - far, far from it, but there is no free lunch, as a former colleague of mine used to say. There is no public tooth fairy. Father Christmas does not work on the Treasury staff this year. You can never bail someone out of trouble without putting someone else into trouble.

There are lots of other things that affect state growth besides state taxes. However, the reason I look at taxes is because these are policy variables that can be changed by state governments in order to get better results than they otherwise had.

With the shrinking of the US economy, and it's shrinking very rapidly, you not only have more money, but you also have fewer goods. That's a classic double-whammy on inflation.