Jeanne Whalen
speaker
62 appearances
3 recordings
1 series
first heard Aug 2025
last heard 4 Aug
Jeanne Whalen’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 1.
Appearances
Mississippi and Oklahoma have put themselves on paths to eliminate personal income taxes over time.
South Carolina is setting a course this year to drop its top income tax rate to 1.99%.
Republican states argue that this makes their states a more attractive place to live and work, particularly at a time when housing is becoming so much more expensive.
They also argue that it could spark more economic growth by leaving more money in the pockets of residents and businesses.
Democrats would argue that it won't leave more money in people's pockets because sales tax will increase.
Economists say that an increase in sales tax tends to hit lower and middle income people harder than it does wealthier people.
So such a shift could potentially increase the tax burden on people making less money and ease it on wealthier people.
So the California tax, as Laura explained, is what people who follow these things closely call a wealth tax, and that is a tax on people's assets.
Most other states that are interested in this are either enacting or considering new taxes on wealthy people's income as opposed to their assets.
States such as Maine, Washington, Massachusetts...
have actually enacted these new income taxes on income over $1 million a year.
There have been discussions among Democrats and progressive groups in other states, such as Rhode Island and Colorado, about trying to push for these new income tax levies.
So that is the more common approach throughout the U.S.
these days in blue states.
The opponents of it would say it's dangerous because what's to stop the state down the road from expanding this higher income tax rate to income under a million dollars and hitting more taxpayers?
But the idea here is there are more people these days earning more than a million dollars a year.
We need more money in our states to pay for health care and healthcare.
food assistance, particularly in the wake of the federal cuts to those programs that were part of the Republicans' tax and spending bill last year, the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill.
In 2022, voters there approved a 4 percent surtax just to the portion of the income that's over a million dollars in that state.
And the state collected $3 billion just from that extra surcharge in 2025.
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