New Podcast: Rich States, Poor States

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) recently released the third edition of Rich States, Poor States, which provides the 2010 ALEC-Laffer State Economic Competitiveness rankings of states based on their economic policies. The third edition examines why the economic crisis has been so rough on the states, what states should do to alleviate the fiscal pain, and what they should avoid. In this week’s podcast, Tax Foundation Staff Economist Kail Padgitt, Ph.D., interviews Jonathan Williams, Director of ALEC’s Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force and co-author of the report, discusses the latest rankings.

“States really do have a choice to make,” Williams says. “We hope that Rich State, Poor States will provide the ample evidence to show that if you choose the low tax, competitive path then prosperity is pretty close behind.”

The states with the best economic outlooks are Utah, Colorado, Arizona, South Dakota and Florida. On the other end of the scale, New York, Vermont, New Jersey, Illinois and California have the worst economic outlooks.

Listen to the full podcast here, or check out all of the Tax Foundation’s Tax Policy Podcasts.