People Are Fleeing High Tax States – With Representative Phil King – With tax rates increasing, blue states are losing their populace as more people decide to flee to conservative areas. Join us today for this fascinating interview with Representative Phil King.

Air Date: 09/28/2020

Guest: Representative Phil King

On-air Personalities: David Barton, Rick Green, and Tim Barton

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Transcription note:  As a courtesy for our listeners’ enjoyment, we are providing a transcription of this podcast. Transcription will be released shortly. However, as this is transcribed from a live talk show, words and sentence structure were not altered to fit grammatical, written norms in order to preserve the integrity of the actual dialogue between the speakers. Additionally, names may be misspelled or we might use an asterisk to indicate a missing word because of the difficulty in understanding the speaker at times. We apologize in advance.

 

Rick:

Welcome to the intersection of faith and the culture. This is WallBuilders Live, we’re glad to have you with us. My name is Rick Green, I’m a former Texas legislator, and America’s Constitution coach. And I am here with America’s premier historian, that’s David Barton. Also, Tim Barton, national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders. You can find out more about the three of us at our website, wallbuilderslive.com. That’s also the place to get some archives of the program. If you’d like to go back a few weeks, if you’ve missed some shows, you can get all those Good News Friday programs, those Foundations of Freedom Thursday programs, and all the great interviews we have Monday through Wednesday. Check all that out at wallbuilderslive.com.

And while you’re there, pause for a moment and make that contribution. Yes, we are a listener supported program, I have no problem asking you to come alongside us and invest in freedom by investing in WallBuilders Live. You can do that right there at wallbuilderslive.com. It might be $5 a month, it might be $50, it might be $5,000. Whatever you can do, we greatly appreciate you coming alongside us. We need your help to do this. You know, we reach a ton of people all over the nation. We inspire and equip folks to be good citizens. We give them the education and the information they need and they act on it. Tons of people run for office as a result of learning from WallBuilders, you can be a part of that by donating at wallbuilderslive.com today, we sure appreciate your consideration in doing that.

Alright, David, Tim, our friend, State representative, Phil King will be with us later in the program. I think the book of the Bible most applicable to 2020 is going to be the second book of the Bible, Exodus, because we have a mass exodus from Blue States happening all over the country. And somewhere along the way, we’ve been praying “Let my people go”, I think because they are going.

David:

That is a great biblical analogy, you’re right, “Let my people go”. There is an exodus out of Blue States, we’re seeing that across the country. And it’s so bad that in New York as people are leaving the wackiness up there and not just the economic wackiness, but even what you see with COVID, and all the restrictions and all the things about how they’re targeted churches and religion and all these fundamental rights, the Second Amendment, New York is so concerned about people leaving, they’re trying to institute lifelong taxes on people after they leave New York.

Tim:

Well, maybe only for 10 years.

David:

Yeah, right.

Tim:

Maybe not their whole life, just for the next 10 years, you have to keep paying taxes to New York even though you don’t live in the State. Yeah, Rick, you’re right. This exodus is very revealing. And actually, one of the things that I heard somebody pointed out that is even kind of ironic about some of the argument for some of these Democrat policies is the Democrats say that, hey, the reason we need to raise taxes is to help the poor people.

But here’s where there’s levels of irony, because the majority of people that are leaving these States are people that have the money to leave, which means these are people that are probably in the wealthier brackets that are leaving New York and California, which means that they are no longer there to pay for these really bad policies. So these policies are now going to be even more destructive to people that the liberals are saying we’re doing this to benefit you. No, this is just going to hurt them even worse as this is going on.

But certainly we are seeing some of these people move out. And we have long talked about this in Texas, we’re seeing different people move in, of what is this going to do to our voting population? How is this going to impact if our State will stay conservative? And really we can even have the conversation of is this the biggest threats to conservatism in Texas, for example?

One of the things we had seen in prior elections is that some of the biggest liberal voting blocks when it came to elections were not the people who were moving in from other States, which the thoughts long had been, will these people from California coming to Texas, they’re going to vote liberal in Texas? Well, no, the bigger problem was the kids who had in the last 10 years been in college in Texas, or in college around the United States who have recently graduated to college or in college or recently graduated high school, what we’ve seen is that the bigger threat to conservatism has been more of the educational dynamic than maybe the people coming from California or New York.

But even with that being said, there’s a lot of people that are moving in that don’t recognize the reason that Texas is welcoming to them, in the sense of from an economic perspective, or whatever the case might be, is because the policies are a little different here. And if we’re not careful, they’re going to start voting for the same policies reflecting the place where they left.

David:

And it’s not just New York and California saying that you’ve seen a lot of Blue States have this kind of pushback against who they are. And what you have, is people as we used to say, they vote with their feet and they walk where they want to be, and they don’t want to be in these Blue States and they’re moving to other Red States.

And one of our good friends, State representative Phil King is the past chairman of ALEC and ALEC is national group of state legislators to represent all 50 States, several thousand of these legislators. And so Phil really has kind of a pulse of what’s going on with all of these states and what the trends are. We thought, you know, this might be interesting to get Phil to comment on this, we’re seeing it. Is it something that really is genuinely existing out there? Is it just that we see it because we’re in Texas, because Texas is certainly growing? So we thought Phil would give us a good national perspective on this.

Rick:

Representative Phil King, our special guest today, stay with us right here on WallBuilders Live.

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Many of you out there are under stay-at-home orders by your governor or your local health officials and maybe you’re looking for something to do during this time. One of the most important things you can do as a citizen is to make sure that you know your rights, you know when they’ve been violated and you’re the better prepared to defend and assert them. To do that, you’ve got to study the Constitution and the history behind it.

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Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us. And thanks to Phil King, State Representative here in the great state of Texas for joining us once again. Phil, always good to have you, man, thanks for some time today.

Phil:

Thanks, Rick. Glad to be here.

Rick:

We thought you’d be the perfect guy to talk about this. We saw where once again, just more and more people live in these high tech states. And if I read this article, right, Texas has been the number one recipient of folks looking for a better place to live, better taxes, better laws.

Phil:

Yeah, it’s really interesting. And Texas has been growing at about 1,000 people a day. About half of that is births minus deaths and then the other half is just migration. And it’s interesting, and you know, we’re doing the census this year and so there’s a lot more focus on looking at the demographics and forced populations and where they’re coming from and going from. And it actually looks like for the first time, I guess, since California statehood that California is actually going to lose a congressional seat. Well, they’re going to lose a congressional seat because they’re losing population. And if you look and see why they’re losing population, it’s people moving to places like Texas, where there’s lower taxes, a more friendly business environment, and just a better opportunity to earn a living.

Rick:

And that’s they lose a congressional seat, they lose also an Electoral College vote. If Texas gains a congressional seat, we also gain an Electoral College vote?

Phil:

Yeah, absolutely, looks like if we get a full count, and there’s little trouble with the census this year. But if we get a full count, it looks like Texas will pick up three seats, go from 36 to 39 and it’s all growth over the last 10 years. And let me tell you, another interesting thing too. When you look at where people are migrating, they’re migrating heavily to states that don’t have a state income tax. That’s why you see places like Florida picking up a lot of population too. And because for whatever reason, States without a state income tax just have a better domestic product, they have a better economy. And the States that have the heaviest taxes and the heaviest regulation, well, guess what, they have lesser economies, and they have people leaving their States for greener pastures.

Rick:

Yeah. You think that’s an indicator if your State refuses to have an income tax, it’s not just that issue, that probably says something about the philosophy of the State, the voters, the legislators and therefore the policy, in other ways is probably going to be more friendly to the individual and to business and all those things?

Phil:

Absolutely. You know, I know for Texas, we try to open our arms and say we are open for business. And we try to have less regulation, just enough to keep the crooks out, right, just enough to provide for public safety. We try to keep taxes as low. We try to keep the regulatory scheme as transparent and navigable as possible. And we try to have courts that are places you go get disputes settled, and not places that you go to make money. And we’re not perfect in all of that, and bureaucracy, you know, bureaucracies are what they are, and government is what it is. But the general impression is and correctly so, that Texas is a place that you can come and have a better chance of running your business, get to keep more of your money, and have less headaches from government.

Rick:

Well, the numbers speak for themselves. I mean, number one, in receiving folks in, and I guess Florida is a close second. We had 1.2 million in the last 10 years here and 1.1 million there. How much did that change the State itself do you think, as all those people come in looking for the conservative results of policy and taxes and those things? If they’re looking for that, do they tend to also vote that way or what do you think?

Phil:

Well, that’s a great question. And it’s an area of a lot of discussion and a little bit of concern. So what we find is that if Corporation ABC picks up and moves out of New York to Texas, if they bring a lot of employees with them, a lot of those employees are used to that more socialist, every regulatory environment. And sometimes we find that the State that they fled, they’ll come to Texas and start voting for the same kind of people that fouled things up in the State they left.

Rick:

Yeah.

Phil:

Now, and that is affecting. We can see some voting trends in some of our suburbs, particularly around the Dallas Fort Worth area, where you have people move in that, for some reason, they can’t figure out that the people they voted for that fouled up everything there that they should vote for somebody different here, somebody more conservative and free market and freedom- oriented.

But the other side of it is, people that specifically say I’m leaving California and going to Texas, and taking my business and moving it there, those are the kind of people that come and they’re like, they were born to be Texans, right, they come in here, and they’re going to vote for the right kind of people and not vote for the folks that forced them out of New York or California, or wherever.

Rick:

Yeah, I think the ones that are coming here and not changing the way they vote to a more conservative, get good policy mindset, we need to send them an old recording of Zig Ziglar, when he would say “If you keep doing what you always been doing, you’re going to keep getting what you always been getting”. Send them and then remind them that if you want the better policies of Texas, you got to stick with the good conservative philosophy. Last thing I want to ask you is, are any of the States that are losing people, does that wake them up or are they just digging in? Or does it take longer you think for them to feel that pain in the right way and the people replace their assemblies and their legislators?

Phil:

You know, you certainly don’t see any change in California. And New York, I mean, it’s just crazy watching what New York’s doing right now. People are fleeing because of the way they’re dealing with COVID with such a heavy hand, and they’re killing their jobs and yet, they just seem to dig in tighter. So it’s baffling to me, because when I start losing money in my business, we step back and say, what in the world are we doing wrong? And if we can’t figure it out, we go try to find some people to come in and show us what we’re doing wrong. And I just don’t understand that with these States.

I mean, I hear them say things like, oh, they’re moving to a better climate, oh, they’re living for retirement purposes. Well, nobody leaves California for a better climate. I mean, think how hard you had to work to really mess up California. I mean, it’s got everything. It’s got the whole Pacific coast. It’s got great weather. It’s got every kind of topography you want. It’s got wonderful, natural resources. And yet, I mean, you had to really work at messing up that economy. And they’re doing the same thing with New York. New York has had everything going for it.

Look at our big cities. Look at places like Detroit. Detroit used to be the icon, after World War II, it was the icon of successful marketing, successful industry, a business community. And look at it today. Look at it today. Other cities as well. So wherever you see this liberal Democrat big government leadership, you end up with lesser economies, falling economies, and people try to figure a way out.

Rick:

You know, Phil, everything you just said would have absolutely been true six months ago before the craziness of 2020. It seems like it’s that on steroids now, 10 times that in these Blue cities, especially where the violence continues with the riots and the Blue states where the governors are just continuing to ignore the science and keep these total lockdowns. So, I mean, I guess we don’t even know yet, we won’t see those numbers reflected for months or maybe even a couple of years. But like I said, everything you just said totally true. But it seems like, man, that’s going to be so much more true now after 2020 than we’ve ever seen in our lifetime.

Phil:

Yeah, I think so. I really do. And I just think, but it’s really simple. It’s as that same old, Maxim that, you know, “You get less of what you tax and more what you subsidize.”

Rick:

Yeah.

Phil:

And if we tax heavy, we’re going to have less business, less opportunity. If we regulate heavy, we’re going to have less opportunity. And if we give out more subsidies to business, we’ll have less business. If we promote welfare and independence, we’ll have more of it by subsidizing.

Rick:

Yeah. So true. Alright, brother. Well, man, we hope all those folks coming to Texas will learn the Texas way and not California, our Texas. But we also really do hope those other States learn the lesson because a lot of good people live in each of those States. Appreciate what you do, appreciate what you do for Texas, and frankly, for the whole country with the way you work with other legislators across the country through ALEC and the other things you’re doing. And just appreciate you, brother, thanks for some time today, man.

Phil:

You as well, see you soon.

Rick:

Stay with us, folks, we’ll be right back with David and Tim Barton.

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Hi, friends, this is Tim Barton of WallBuilders. This is a time when most Americans don’t know much about American history or even heroes of the faith. And I know oftentimes for parents, we’re trying to find good content for our kids to read.

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Rick:

We’re back from WallBuilders Live. Thanks for staying with us and thanks to Phil King for joining us here today. And guys, I mean, Phil pointed out that you got to really worry about the policies once they move in. Tim, you mentioned that at the top of the program. But it does, it does make sense that the people that would be most upset by liberal policies that are beginning to take too much of their taxes and too much of their property and all of those things, they’re going to be the first ones to move. And so in some States, it may actually help, I don’t know, but it’s definitely happening. We’re seeing the mass exodus on a daily basis.

David:

You know, and what Phil pointed out about how that when they business owners come in, they tend to be much more conservative, because they’re having to deal with a really hostile business environment in these States, but the employees they bring with them are not necessarily that same mindset.

And Glenn Beck is a good friend of ours. And we were talking a couple years ago after he had moved from New York down to Texas, he got his network set up here, it’s just doing really well and really growing. But he was talking about how that as a successful business guy who had brought this news network to Texas, that he was talking to some of the Chamber of Commerce and business groups in Dallas, because he’s recognized as a business leader.

And so they had him talking and he said, I told these guys, he said, look, you guys know why you came to Texas, the same reason I did. The values are here. You want to raise your kids in this kind of environment. It’s got a much better system on business stuff, business taxation. There’s no income tax. You get Tort Reform that keeps businesses from being sued every time somebody doesn’t like something. He said, you’re bringing your businesses here, Texas is growing faster than any other State with business growth. But you’re not telling your employees why you came here. You’re coming here for the right reasons, but they don’t know that.

He said, If you don’t start telling your employees why you came, there was for freedom and economic activity and less government, he said, this State is going to be just as “Blue” as the State you left if you don’t start teaching your employees. Now, I thought, you know, that’s what Phil just said to. And so we’re seeing that the early wave in the Texas away from the States is really good because of the leaders, but those who follow just because of the job’s not necessarily the same thing.

Tim:

Well, it’s interesting. One of the guys leaving California, coming to Texas is Joe Rogan. And Joe Rogan has a podcast. He was a commentator for the UFC, a pretty recognizable name. He also was a Bernie Sanders supporter, but he’s leaving California because they become a little too tyrannical. And it’s just level of irony going, wait a second, Bernie Sanders is the guy you support socialism and yet you don’t like California. There seems to be a major disconnect for some people not recognizing that, dad, as you’re mentioning, right, the policies that are causing them to leave one State are policies that they still want to support once they get to the new State. And if those policies are enacted in this new State, that new state will become just as bad if not even worse than the State they left.

Rick:

Alright guys, we went a little long in our interview with Phil, so we got to take a quick break. We’ll be right back for our final segment today. You’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

BREAK

The Founding Fathers of America made a habit of reading through the Bible once a year. There’s no better source of wisdom and it is applicable to every issue in our lives. What a great time for us as American citizens to take this time. If you’ve got extra time at home now, if you’re quarantined at home and you’re looking for something to do, what better thing could there be to do than to read through the Bible, maybe for the first time in your life?

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Rick:

Welcome back. Thanks for staying with us here on WallBuilders Live. And guys, so we know that the States have different policies; Texas is one of only, what is it five or six States that don’t have an income tax?

David:

I got news for you, bro. People have been voting and ballot and initiative referendums and now there are eight States that do not have a state income tax. So it’s up from five to eight, it is growing. And those States that don’t have a State income tax are finding people are moving at a much more rapid rate than the other States. So can you tell me the eight States?

Tim:

Florida, Texas.

David:

Florida, Texas.

Tim:

Rick, your turn?

Yeah, thanks, man. South Dakota. No, I don’t know about South Dakota. I’m just bragging about South Dakota all the time.

David:

You got it, South Dakota.

Rick:

Of course they don’t have an income tax.

Tim:

Idaho?

David:

No, Idaho does. Alright, here it is. Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington.

Rick:

Washington. What!

David:

Wyoming. But see, they’ve got so much business up there with Boeing and Amazon and everything else. They’re driving businesses out. They’ve at least been smart enough to recognize that they’re killing their own businesses when they have an income tax. So Washington, Wyoming, New Hampshire and Tennessee, those are your eight States.

Tim:

See, I’m disappointed with Idaho right now, because they’re super conservative and I would have thought they’d have done better. And they’re getting beat out by some liberal states, so okay, I’m little disappointed.

David:

Yeah, Washington State. Come on… Idaho. Where’s your pride?

Tim:

Well, New Hampshire, come on, the Yankees are beating you. What are we doing? Let’s go.

David:

Yeah. So that’s the States, as Phil points out, that’s the ones that are growing, is the States that have no state income tax, no to all state legislators. If you want more economic growth, you get more people in with more business, and that means you don’t have as high of taxes, people come and that way you actually increase your income. It’s counterintuitive. That’s the way it works in the free market.

The other thing Phil said is they have a more stable, more friendly business environment. And what that generally means it’s what’s called Tort Reform. And I love the way Phil defined it. He said, well, that means that courts are a place where you go to have disputes settled rather than where you go to make money and I thought that’s exactly it. You’re not going to court to sue somebody to make money, you go in there to get justice.

And so Tort Reform where you can spill coffee on yourself and sue the restaurant. You spilled it on yourself, but I’m going to sue the restaurant and get $5 million for burning me. I mean, that’s ridiculous. And Texas does not allow that. There has to be an actual basis for your lawsuit, not just a complaint on your stupidity. So that’s the other thing that makes such a stable State.

But again, Texas may be the only State in the Union to increase by three Congressmen. And you know, Rick, as we were talking before the problem, that’s three more Electoral votes that will move into more conservative direction, making it that much easier to elect the conservative president. But again, people are voting with their feet and moving into States that have good economic policies and those states tend to be Red and not Blue.

Rick:

And that’s just the Texas numbers, let alone the other States that tend to be red as well, that are going to be gaining those additional congressional seats and additional Electoral College vote. And that could mean some very positive things down the road. We need to think long term about these things.

That’s one of the reasons we encourage you to study the Constitution and teach others about it. Because you’re really investing in not just this election right now, but 5 years from now, 10 years from now, 20 years from now, making sure that we’re raising up an informed populace, citizens, Christians that understand their duty, their biblical responsibility, their duty under the Constitution. It’s a responsibility that all of us have, and we have a responsibility to do it, not only ourselves, but to educate others.

So please share this information, go to wallbuilderslive.com today, get some of these programs, share them on social media. Start doing a constitution class in your home or are at your church or on Zoom or wherever you would like to do one. We’ve got thousands of Constitution coaches out there now that are hosting Constitution Alive with David Barton and Rick Green and teaching their friends and family the foundation of America. That’s doing your part to restore America’s constitutional republic.

Hope you’ll consider doing that? You can sign up today for free. We’re giving it all the way at constitutioncoach.com. Constitutioncoach.com.

Thanks so much for listening to WallBuilders Live.