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A blog about Schools & Education, Religion & Faith, and Politics.
Real Name: Richard Bramer Member Since: June 27, 2006 Last Signed In: November 21, 2009 Profile Views: 741 Blog Views: 7796 McCain Backers Testosterone Levels Dropped After Loss Obama's Nobel Peace Prize: How Did That Happen? Obama Song: The Sad, Sorry Truth Conservatives Give - But Only to Their Churches Getting All Wee Weed Up Right Wing Poster Boy Gladney Needs Insurance Reform Sitting Here Awaiting the Obama Presser Anxiously A Tale of Two Kings: Jackson and Presley Fourth of July Weekend Open Invite What Does Coleman v. Franken Tell Us About Bush v. Gore? November 08 December 08 January 09 February 09 March 09 April 09 May 09 June 09 July 09 August 09 September 09 October 09 November 09 Sloganeering, platitiudes, 'gotcha' politicking - everyone recognizes it and everyone complains about it when it's aimed at them. It takes real dedication to avoid it. The way to proceed, I believe, is to avoid the desire to be humorous or cute in the midst of a serious political discussion. Avoid negative mental habits, fear or hate mongering and demonizing the opposition. Remember the truth in physics is simple; in politics it's complicated. If you can't name your views, the opposition's views and a third view, then you don't adequately understand the topic. The posts here will, at times, be lengthy but I will also support them with ample references, usually in the form of links, so that the reader will be left with more than just my position on a topic, but hopefully some information beyond that. 
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California in Top Ten of Happiness Poll - Do Our Taxes Predict This?
The Gallup-Healthways Well Being Index has been released, and California ranks ninth out of the top ten on the list. The top ten and their scores are: 1. Utah 69.2 2. Hawaii 68.2 3. Wyoming 68.0 4. Colorado 67.3 5. Minnesota 67.3 6. Maryland 67.1 7. Washington 67.1 8. Massachusetts 67.0 9. California 67.0 10. Arizona 66.8 The bottom ten sans scores were: Michigan, Tennessee, Oklahoma, Missouri, Indiana, Arkansas, Ohio, Mississippi, Kentucky, West Virginia These results are very interesting. A month ago I would have remarked about how the top of the list is dominated by states that backed Obama and the bottom of the list is dominated by states that backed McCain, but today that is not the story. What I notice today is that there is a real pattern in terms of taxation. Is there a correlation between willingness to pay taxes and a state's well being? This occurred to me because I saw my original comparison state (from my last blog post), West Virginia, at the absolute bottom of the list. Meanwhile, the top of the list has several states whose reputation as Democrat (supposedly tax and spend) states is secure. Let's see what the relationship between tax revenue and happiness (as measured by this group) is. According to the Federation of Tax Administrators reading of Census Data, (http://www.taxadmin.org/fta... the rankings of those 20 states according to how much tax revenue they generate on their own (federal transfers excluded) are as follows: 1. Utah 34 2. Hawaii 8 3. Wyoming 3 4. Colorado 21 5. Minnesota 11 6. Maryland 13 7. Washington 17 8. Massachusetts 9 9. California 10 10. Arizona 49 (For an average tax rank of 17.6.) 41. Michigan 33 42. Tennessee 48 43. Oklahoma 42 44. Missouri 46 45. Indiana 12 46. Arkansas 47 47. Ohio 29 48. Mississippi 50 49. Kentucky 45 50. West Virginia 35 (For an average tax rank of 38.7)
No surprise is there? In fact, if you remove the statistical outliers (Arkansas for the top ten and Indiana for the bottom 10), the results are even more stark. With the outliers removed, the top ten average tax rank score is 14 and the bottom ten average tax rank is 41.67. It seems obvious to me that while raising tax revenues won't guarantee happiness of the populace, it is a strong indicator. What doesn't make sense here?
5 comments from 4 users
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posted by
zapped
on Mar 11, 2009 at 11:38 AM
Did you ever learn correlation doesn't mean causation? Mormons are a disturbingly jolly group of people. Utah is flooded with them, and how could anyone be pissed off living in Hawaii? I don't think taxes quite tell the story posted by
witterpitters
on Mar 11, 2009 at 11:48 AM
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm do they mean happy as is "Oh boy what a great day this is"? OR happy as in "woooooooooooo hooooooooooooooo! yada yada yada! zing zing zing! whooooooooooo yaaaaa" while running around 3-B at kern med? posted by
dirtyshirt
on Mar 11, 2009 at 12:10 PM
zapped: I teach statistics, so I used the term correlation advisedly. I also don't think taxes tell the whole story, and said so in the original piece. On the other hand, correlation is sometimes all we have, and the foundation of many policy decisions. People are convicted on circumstantial evidence, the legal equivalent of correlational data, every day. Correlation deserves out attention, especially, when we have other avenues of evidence and/or experience that support the same conclusion. I think that's the situation we have here.
witters: the former. posted by
randomfactor
on Mar 11, 2009 at 12:19 PM
Wonder how it compares to the new unemployment figures. The "winners:" California ..........................| &nbs p; ; 10.1 posted by
dirtyshirt
on Mar 11, 2009 at 01:19 PM
randomfactor: I think these figures are quite pertinent; like zapped and I discussed - the correlation of taxes with happiness can't ever be called causality. There are clearly other factors involved. You have listed at least one other of critical importance. The cases of California and Indiana are interesting, for example. Indiana is good at creating revenue (taxing) and yet is unhappy. The failure of revenue to fight unemployment there might tell a part of the story. On the other hand, California is very close to Indiana in terms of revenue abilities, but ranks much higher in happiness. Like I suggested in my previous post, perhaps being in California is its own reward.
Still not causative, but the more data and observation that remains consistent with the data you have, the stronger the argument. Thanks for your addition.
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