The problem is the recent slate of "don't say gay" bills and abortion bans are state-wide affairs

I share one thought about this, which is I don't want my tax dollars supporting red state policies, in essence, and I wonder if OP feels the same way

There are several red states with no state income tax. Texas and Florida for example, so I assume you're talking about property taxes and taxes on items like gas or food?

I like to think of property tax as a wealth tax for the middle class. My understanding is that the per capita taxes of those states aren't really much different from others, but they're structured more regressively.

The opposite is true.

First, there is no middle, it would be more useful to describe socioeconomic classes of people by decile, or even quintile.

But the top 10% surely owns more real estate than the bottom 90%, so low property tax is very regressive since it allows them to hoard real estate, while the rest of the population pays to secure it via funding the police/legal system.

Second, the lower socioeconomic classes are going to spend all of their money on rent, and goods and services, like consumables and healthcare and food and tolls. So sales tax and usage based taxes for things necessary to live are the most regressive.

Tax is tax, does not matter whether it is income tax, sales tax, car registration fees, tolls, unemployment insurance, estate tax, etc. If it is mandatory, and it eventually goes into government coffers, it all falls into the “government expense” bucket for an individual.

Funny you say that, because not only do 'red' states have higher crime rates than 'blue' states[0], but 'red' cities within those red states, like Jacksonville or Oklahoma City, also have higher crime rates.[1]

[0]https://www.thirdway.org/report/the-two-decade-red-state-mur...

[1]https://www.newsweek.com/these-republican-cities-have-higher...

Nice newspapers. They also thought Hunter’s laptop was fake

The chain of custody of Hunter’s laptop doesn’t exactly inspire legions of prosecutors to file any charges

You mean states like Texas where schools and malls definitely aren’t being shot up?

You mean like SF where there’s no looting?

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The recent wave of legislation being passed is obviously nothing related to crime.

https://apnews.com/article/desantis-florida-dont-say-gay-ban...

Unfortunately, this is becoming less and less true as GOP-run states strip autonomy from cities and steadily increase state control over them. Take Texas as an example,[0] where they've banned cities from

  -enacting paid sick leave

  -enacting mandatory heat and water breaks for manual labor jobs

  -modifying their police budgets

  -restricting fracking within city limits

  -restricting greenhouse gas-intense products

Among other things.

[0]https://www.ksat.com/news/texas/2023/04/18/texas-house-appro...

Wow - apparently a 10 minute cooling break every 4 hours is too much to ask.

There's an argument that you want consistency across the state. Having snowflake jurisdictions is a headache for businesses.

Cities can compete against each other to attract businesses - no? If businesses can deal with a patchwork of sales taxes and building codes, they can handle other bylaws just fine. These laws have the hallmark signs of a partisan power-grab on red-meat issues.

> Cities can compete against each other to attract businesses - no?

We've seen this with Walmarts. They get cities to compete for their stores. Amazon did it for HQ2. The problem is the winner's curse. The winning city will often bid so low they take a net loss.

I mostly agree with you, but let's be honest: this is not the motivating factor for republican state legislatures grabbing power from cities. If it were, the legislatures would be getting rid of tax rebates and tax holidays cities offer to attract businesses, and instead have a uniform tax structure across the whole state for "uniformity"

Athens, GA is good if you want something that feels a little more small town but still has (free!) bus stops everywhere, the occasional rainbow flag, and enough food and entertainment options that you'll never be bored.

Republican politicians in many red states have been aggressively exerting political control over their blue cities and towns in recent years. It's worth considering the political trajectory of a state, not just its red/blue orientation.