THE BUCK STOPS THERE

The polite way state officials describe soaking out-of-state visitors is to say they are “exporting taxes,” meaning they get someone besides state residents to pay for the services those residents use. Some states have become especially good at this and a few really worked over the perfect tax-paying chump that demands little and doesn’t even bother to visit.

Alaska exports taxes through its oil, Montana exports it through coal; Vacationland, in a smaller way, exports taxes when it charges a high rate for meals and lodging, though it also catches residents that way too. But perhaps a more effective way to gather state revenues is to bring home pork from Washington, which requires no product except able members of Congress.

It may well be coincidental, but five of the top 10 states for pork are also in the top 10 for lowest local and state tax burdens. With the exception of New Hampshire, the states don’t have a lot of wealth that would reduce their burdens unusually. (The other four are Alaska, Alabama, Nevada and South Dakota.) They do have powerful representation in Congress – Alaska’s Sen. Don Young, chairman of the Transportation Committee, ensured his home state would receive $540 million in transportation earmarks next year.

Whether pork is a good or a bad idea, of course, depends on who is receiving and who is paying. Congress recently seems to have decided that everyone should receive – the Tax Foundation reported there were more than 10,000 earmarked projects in the 13 appropriations bills to be considered by Congress, worth nearly $23 billion and up considerably in the last few years. The mathematics of everyone receiving are a little difficult to understand, but Congress can’t be expected to think of everything.

If there’s anything to a relation between high pork levels and low state and local taxes, no state should be more interested in this than Maine, which is near the top of the most-heavily taxed states. The issue at least deserves more study. Perhaps a federal grant could be obtained so Maine could look into it.