What does it mean for a state to be affluent? The goods and services governments purchase are presumably purchased in their local markets. It’s not as if a $60k New York police officer or bureaucrat stops more crime, pushes more paper, or lives better than his $30k counterpart in Alabama. It’s not as if a public housing project that builds 10 efficiency studios at $500k each represents a higher level of public service than one that provisions 10 $50k mobile homes. I agree that certain areas have higher and lower concentrations of genuine wealth but a progressive income tax curve already takes care of that. SALT was more like a crude approximation of a cost of living adjustment.