I absolutely want every parasite to have their ill-gotten gains redistributed fairly to make a better society. I want to see a frown on the face of everybody who somehow rakes in over $1 million each year when they are told they have to give more back to a society where most people don't clear that much in a decade. I want them to threaten to flee, to try to extort, to attempt blackmail, and all of it to come to nought when the people arrive at their front doors with spoons and forks.

Hope that clears up your confusion.

I think this is the best way of thinking about it.

I would be much more enthusiastic if the ballot initiative had picked 7% to be in closer alignment with our neighboring states and still substantially lower than the premium charged by states like NY and CA.

It is perfectly reasonable for FL and TX to compete on price to attract residents just as it's perfectly reasonable for other states to charge a premium and focus more on quality of life and amenities. The nice thing about the laboratory of democracy is that we get to see what people actually value and states can respond accordingly.

I truly am concerned that this backfires and I'm the one that gets less stuff out of it. Less teacher in the classroom for my kids, or more taxes for me because rich people, who pay the majority of taxes in this state, leave and I'm the one without. I don't count NY as a neighbor to the hub of Boston where most people live, I count Maine at the highest 7.15, RI at 5.9 and NH at 0 wage 5 investment as neighbors, although you can fairly call me out for being eastern-centric, but that is where the majority of people in this state live.

If we had a surplus this year, why risk it, why even take the chance that we could be worse off? I will tell you right now if my state taxes went up 72%, I'd be pretty pissed off and would leave, and my extra 72%, is nowhere near the dollar amount of a rich person. I just think everybody has blinders on thinking that rich people will just roll over and after being called all these greedy names during the election cycle, having their picture sent on postcards with their salaries or net worth as if they are bad people, why the heck would you stay in this state after that?

Any other sub on Reddit is about rich people being greedy and doing anything to get out of taxes... Except apparently in MA, apparently we all seem to think rich people are upstanding citizens who don't care about money and can't wait to pay more taxes.

You didn't answer the question. "How's that boot taste" is a cop out when you don't have any real response. If say an Abigail Johnson decides to just retire and change her residency to another state, something that happens a lot when a parent passes in businesses like hers, her dad passed this year, and if they live in a high-tax state - I wouldn't call MA a high-tax state today, but I would if this passes. I'd guess she pays $37M to Massachusetts in taxes each year, plus or minus $10M. If after these postcards go out making her look evil and voters have gone alone with it and decide to increase her taxes by 80%, if she decides to leave, she no longer pays her $37M to Massachusetts, are you going to be okay with about 300 teachers less in the classroom due to that cut? Are you okay when Maura Healy has to propose raising the sales tax rate to compensate?

Whether you'd like your head in the sand or not, that is exactly what happens in other states when they raise taxes, the wealthy leave, leaving less services and higher taxes for those who remain. Higher income tax rates do not always mean more revenue, especially when they are forced upon those who are most mobile.

Just look up countries that had high taxes. Look at NY, they have to keep raising taxes from higher income people moving out. Reversing the increases worked just fine for Denmark, they ended up doing very well after cutting taxes back down, but that takes more guts to say "we're going to have a few years of major budget cuts before we can attract new talent again." Taxing the rich only works if there are rich people.

I do think you underestimate dramatically how easy it is to move. They don't even need to sell their home, they probably already have one in a lower tax state that all they need to do is stay in the other home more days than the state here. I think people confuse the challenges someone earning $40k may have moving and someone who earns $5M a year, it's as easy as signing paperwork.

I am fortunate enough to have worked a lot of hours in my 20s and can pick up and go if my kids school starts to have teacher cuts or if the state now tries to raise taxes on me. I already once left a state that raised taxes on working folks when the rich left, I can easily do it again. From the sounds of it, many people on this discussion think moving is hard and that leads me to believe they wouldn't be able to leave as easily as I could if conditions suffer. Just to be clear, do I think this one measure is doom and gloom, absolutely not. I don't believe enough people would leave that we will have catastrophic layoffs of teachers, but I do think there will be some issues 3 or 4 years down the line. Add that to the highest electricity rates in the US, my property taxes up are 40% since I moved 5 years ago, the cost of produce seems to be increasing a little more than other parts of the country, eggs which used to be the cheapest source of protein is up 1,100% in MA but no where else in the country is anywhere near that increase, heating costs are growing at a crazy rate; when you compound it all, we aren't making smart thought-out decisions in MA. It seems we are going for legislation based on talking points rather than looking at the full consequences of our policies.