more of the same

Living in the northwest Chicago suburbs for the summer, it takes a while for my weekly subscription to The Economist to get forwarded to me from my Columbus address. Today I was able to do a little catching up on the May 20-26 issue. In this issue, there was a blurb about Cuno that began with a summary of the case and ended with a brief economic analysis:

Overall, [Ohio] collects taxes equal to 12% of personal income, according to the Tax Foundation: the third-highest tax burden in America, and more than a percentage point above the national average. Those poor saps, ordinary taxpayers, are the ones who fill the gap between incentives for business and consistently high state spending.

America's states would no doubt have better governance if they would stick to simple tax systems that are broad and fair, and then compete with neighbouring states by deciding how hgh or low to set their overall tax burden. Those acrobatic politicians, however, would never go for it.

My thoughts exactly. But similar to WSJ's coverage of the issue, The Economist missed an opportunity to adequately address an issue that needs to be covered. Rather than authoring a special report on Scotland and its relationship with the rest of the UK and devoting barely a half a page to the inequity of state tax incentives, couldn't the magazine done a special report on state tax incentives?

The answer is yes, The Economist could have written a few pages on tax incentives, but clearly the higher-ups there don't feel it is worth it at this time. And to be fair, The Economist is an English journal at heart, so it makes sense for them to write a full report on the Scots' problems which concludes that in politics, Scotland "shows little originality, exuberance or readiness or readiness to experiment...."

Perhaps the failure of due coverage is a window of opportunity.