Blue state departures hit the coffers hard, so progressive Democrats devise a creative

When does the tarring and feathering start?

You didn’t vote for this garbage, but your useful idiot neighbors did, so now you’ve decided to pack up and head to a state with lighter tax burdens (still a burden, but nonetheless more doable), where the government isn’t prioritizing “trans-ing” your child behind your back and threatening to sever the parental relationship if you get in the way; where prosecutors won’t come after you if you’re forced to defend yourself (or others, as in the case of Daniel Penny) against the aggression of a violent criminal; and where illegal invaders aren’t treated like royalty, all on your dime. Well, now there’s a fine for that. Introducing… the “Exit Tax.” 

You think you’re just going to emancipate yourself from the tyranny of Democrat-run jurisdictions and flee to a friendlier locale? Bless your heart. Here’s the story, from a new report out at Fox News just this morning:

Ready to pick up and move to another state? Well, you might have to think twice because broke blue states are coming up with a new, creative way to tax you when you cross the border: the EXIT TAX.

This policy is already established in one state—if you guessed California, you’d be correct— but other debt-saddled Democrat states are looking to follow suit. (If you weren’t up to speed, California is facing a historic deficit in the tens of billions.) Now, while the government calls this a “tax” it’s obviously not a tax at all, but a fine, penalizing a producer for rejecting the policies of the progressive Democrat party, the same ones turning everything they touch into a dystopian and apocalyptic landfill.

Here’s the California model, also from Fox:

This is a one-time tax that must be paid by businesses and individuals who relocate outside the state. The tax is based on the value of the business or individual’s assets, including property, stocks and other investments, but not real estate. 

The exit tax is 0.4% of an individual’s net worth over $30 million in a tax year, no matter where it’s located — within California, other states within the U.S. or overseas. This amount is halved to $15 million if a married taxpayer files a separate return to their spouse. This EXIT TAX follows you to another state for up to 10 years.

Yes, you read that right…this fine “follows” you wherever your move, up to ten years.

When I think of all the taxes, fees, and fines imposed upon the American tax slave, I often think of a Forrest Gump movie scene: while Benjamin Buford Blue (also known as “Bubba”) and Forrest complete their boot camp training, Bubba launches into a days-long monologue of all the different ways to cook and serve up shrimp. Eventually though he’s covered it all, and he’s out of shrimp dishes to list off; at this point he says, “That, that’s about it.” The difference though? There’s never a settled conclusion for the theft done at the hands of the state—there will always be something else. (Joe Biden is now proposing a second death tax, which means we can expect a third death tax, and a fourth, and a fifth, and so on, ad infinitum.)

While I myself am not a Ronald Reagan fan—heresy I know, but I just don’t like gun control, amnesty for illegal invaders, and blanket immunity for Big Pharma while I foot the bill for the damages and death it sows—I find his quote on the “government’s view of the economy” a decent start:

Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.

What he failed to articulate though is that this isn’t just “government” but a big government, or leftist government, because this is certainly not the way our limited-government-states-superior-to-federal founders would have viewed the market. And, what should be added after all the taxing and regulating and subsidizing is this: “And when there are dissenters, fine them.”

Image: Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Flickr, unaltered.