Or maybe whines.

During a Monday press conference, Mr [Andrew, D] Cuomo said wealthy individuals living in these areas were either moving or shifting their official residence to lower-tax states….

Cuomo’s whining continued:

SALT was an economic civil war.  It literally restructured the economy to help red states at the cost of blue states. That’s exactly what it did. It was a diabolical, political maneuver.

Yeah—it’s really diabolical to let folks—even the Evil Rich—keep more of their money.  It’s especially diabolical that those folks would want to keep their money and actually take steps to take advantage of the Federal tax reform and avail themselves, also of the benefits of living in lower-tax locales. I mean, really.

The fact that New York’s and New Jersey’s tax structure is explicitly, carefully structured to relieve the especially successful of their earnings should be a hint, but it has blown right by Cuomo and New Jersey’s Progressive-Democratic governor Phil Murphy.  Picking on New York, again,

the highest-earning 1% of taxpayers accounted for $17.8 billion of personal income tax revenue, or 45.8% of the total.

On the other hand,

[t]he vast majority of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut residents received federal tax cuts because of the changes. Many who have state and local taxes above $10,000 are benefiting from lower federal tax rates, larger child tax credits, the larger standard deduction and the narrowing of the alternative minimum tax.

But that doesn’t count.  Except to put a premium, in Progressive-Democrat eyes, on even more heavily taxing those rich folks.

Senator and President wannabe Elizabeth Warren (D, MA), according to her current financial disclosure, has a net worth of between $4 million and $10 million.

She’s proposing a wealth tax on the rich, but her threshold for incurring the tax doesn’t begin until $50 million.

Hmm….

Here’s JPMorgan Chase’s CEO Jamie Dimon on raising taxes on the wealthy in particular: Opens a New Window.

I believe that individuals earning the most can afford to pay more, and I have no problem paying higher taxes to address some of the fundamental challenges and inequities in our society[.]

I’ll leave aside the illogic of Dimon’s implied obligation resultant from mere affordabity.  What are Dimon’s fundamental challenges and inequities that want government intervention?

ensur[ing] that tax dollars are being put to the “most effective” use, like expanding the earned income tax credit, alongside other programs that support the people and communities who need it the most.

Others, though, might argue that earned income tax credits are just social engineering (and disagree over whether social engineering is itself good or bad), or that credits should be applied to a different purpose; others’ views of who has the greatest need might be different; others’ definitions of need might be different; and on and on.

Even well intended men and women in government have differing goals and views of what ought to be done in the name of government, and these often are diametrically opposed.  It’s especially the case that the employers of those men and women, their constituents, have differing, even opposing, goals and imperatives.  That demands compromise in governing, and if compromise isn’t achieved, tax dollars are not used effectively at all, much less most effectively.

When compromise is achieved, the result is that not even the most correct, the most righteous, ends are achieved with anything close to efficiency.  This may actually be worse, fiscally, since the money would be misallocated and irrevocably consumed rather than held against a useful future expenditure.

In the end, Government cannot put our money to the “most effective” use, only to the uses of compromise, and this violates Dimon’s underlying criterion.

The best we can do is limit Government inefficiency by limiting Government.  The most effective way we can do that is by limiting the amount of money we allow Government to have.  And even here we can only compromise: what is the minimum amount, how much money does Government really need?  For what purposes?