In the race to see who can tax the rich the most, Rhode Island is contesting for the lead, courtesy of the State’s Progressive-Democratic governor, Dan McKee, and his legislature. The legislature has just passed and McKee just signed a bill that, among other items on Progressives’ wish list, raises the top income tax rate from 5.99% to 8.99%.

All races have winners and losers, and the losers in this race to tax are the citizens of those States whose governments keep raising taxes. It’s not just the Evil Rich who are losers in this race, though. The losers include all those whose portfolios—including 401(k)s and IRAs—benefit from the investments those rich folks make. The losers include the citizens of those high and higher tax-competing States who work, or would like to work, but the jobs aren’t expanding as much or aren’t being created at all because the Rich are constrained in how much they can grow their businesses or innovate from inside them. The losers include the small mom-and-pop businesses who fall into the Evil Rich category via the income pass-through nature of their businesses.

McKee’s tax on the rich in particular, will, as the editors at The Wall Street Journal noted, very heavily impact pass-through small businesses. What can those folks do? A glance at a map suggests a response, at least for the State over which McKee reigns. Rhode Island is 45 miles long, north to south, and its east-west width varies from 20 miles in the north to 35 miles in the south, with some detours to get to bridges across various fingers of Narragansett Bay and Mt Hope Bay. Those business owners easily could relocate to next door Massachusetts or Connecticut and still ably serve their existing customers. Those two States have high taxes, also, but not as destructively so as what McKee is inflicting.

For this Texan, for most of us in the Midwest and Pennsylvania, that’s an easy daily commute.