Los Angeles Times: Is the Oil Crash About to Snuff out the Texas Miracle?

Questions about who has really benefited from Texas fiscal policies will be heard more often, and the answers will be ugly. As the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy observes, Texas has one of the most regressive tax systems in the land: its poorest 20% pay about four times as much of their average income in state taxes as the top 1%; middle-income residents pay about twice as much of their income as the wealthy. Texas makes up for its lack of a state income tax, in other words, with a passel of other levies. These hit the middle-class and the poor especially hard. By contrast, California’s tax system is much more progressive.

Read more