The Geography of a Surtax

Citizens for Tax Justice put together a helpful table offering a state-by-state breakdown of how many people would be impacted by the House’s proposal for a surtax on high-income households to pay for health care:

Such states as Indiana, Montana, Nebraska, Arkansas, and Louisiana that send a lot of centrist Democrats to the senate have fewer-than-average of these super-rich people. By contrast, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and California don’t come off so well. In one possible universe, liberal senators will have an ideologically-driven interest in soaking the rich while centrist senators will see this proposal as transferring wealth to their states. In a different universe, centrist senators will have an ideologically-driven interest in protecting the welfare of rich people and liberal senators will see this as transferring wealth away from their states.