"wealthy residents in high tax states"

This to me is one of the biggest problems talking about taxation and wealth in the US. $50k is nothing you can really live off in most (by population) parts of California. $100k would make you well-off elsewhere but makes you poor in the Bay Area. While I'm generally for some degree of wealth redistribution, I'm afraid this will hit many people who aren't actually wealthy, but just scraping by.

There is a large difference in the cost of living between areas like SF and NYC and the average, but it is not nearly that high. The living wage for a family of two adults, and two children, with one working, for San Francisco is $72k according to http://livingwage.mit.edu/counties/06075 Chattanooga TN has the lowest of a major city at $47k in income for the same size family. Over 50% of households in the bay area make less than $75k a year. It is a hyperbole to say that $100k is poor even in the bay area

Try and find just 2 real estate listings you think this family of 4 could live in within an hour of SF.

Maybe if they got a rent controlled place 15 years ago.

It may or may not. I'm admittedly not an economist, and even if I were, I'm not remotely informed on California tax policy.

That said, it's confounding to me that eliminating the mortgage deduction, and eliminating SALT deductions were considered progressive ideals, right up until the Republicans implemented it. I don't know if it's people preferring policy ideals that sound good on paper, or if they're being applied to some richer population than the one whomever happens to be in, or if this is just the result of tribal echoing, but what we're left with isn't pretty.

I live in NYC on $55k/year. I live paycheck to paycheck constantly. My rent takes over 50% of my monthly income.

50k is the median family income in nyc.

Folks making $100k in the Bay Area aren’t scraping by. Living in the Bay Area itself gives them opportunities and advantages they wouldn’t have in say Des Moines.

The folks making $100k are incredibly under taxed in the US. In Sweden, the top tax bracket kicks in at about $77,000.

Really? The numbers say otherwise. Take half that 100K for various taxes. Take $24K for rent. Leaves $24K for transportation, food, health care. Kind of a skinny chicken.

In Des Moines, you can buy a house for $100K. You can rent for $12K a year. Can ride a bike all over town, or live blocks from work. Its a whole different world.

PaycheckCity calculates $65,000 net on $100k salary in California, for a single person. Take out $24k for rent, and that leaves $3,400 per month for other stuff. That’s extremely comfortable.

If Des Moines offered similar opportunities, people would live there instead of San Francisco. Those opportunities are themselves a benefit that can’t be ignored. And if people live in SF even though the benefits don’t outweigh the increased cost of living, why should th government subsidize that lifestyle choice?

Public policy does more than enough already to reward sprawl and punish urban centers. Billions for freeways and a pittance for transit, FHA bias towards single family homes, etc. For the environment and the economy, we should be rewarding and encouraging people who move to megacities.

To make that worse, historically problematic movements like the Nazis, the Khmer Rouge and large parts of the Chinese communism found better support in rural areas. I strongly recommend Ian Buruma's "Occidentalism". It's short, packed with information, well researched and completely changed how I see the world. I would go so far to say that we need everything we can to have as few people live in rural areas as possible. Otherwise we will keep getting movements of rural people feeling left behind by the cold, calculating, greedy and immoral urban dwellers which will ultimately result in them yet again dragging everything down with them.

Living in the Bay Area is a choice. If someone is scraping by but could effectively make more relative to cost of living elsewhere, they should consider moving.