New York Mag: Rick Perry, Republicans, and the African-American Vote

Empowering state and local governments would make African-Americans more vulnerable to the whims of the very governments that have served them poorly. The state and local tax base is highly regressive, with Perry’s Texas being among the worst offenders. (The poorest 20 percent of Texans pay 12.5 percent of their income in state and local taxes; the richest one percent of Texans pay 2.9 percent of their income in state and local taxes.) States erect bureaucratic obstacles to winnow low-income potential voters from the electorate; Texas has continued its long history of such behavior.

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