Voting With Their Feet in 1758

Prof. Somin at Volokh Conspiracy has a book and a bunch of blog posts on the theme of people voting with their feet--moving from one state to another or one country to another.  As a libertarian he's all for it. 

It's not new, as I discovered when reading the Anderson "Crucible of War" on the Seven Years War.  Interesting bit in it--the Massachusetts legislature wrote to the British regarding the demands for more troops for 1759 campaign, recruiting for which would require paying enlistment bonuses.  They complained that taxes were already so high that people were leaving Massachusetts for better places.

Of course 270 years later Massachusetts is still wealthy and still a high tax state.

A Good Provider Is One Who Leaves

That's the title of Jaon DEParle's new book.  It's an interesting read--DeParle moves between the saga of an extended Filopino family's travels and travails in working in the Middle East, in America, and on crruise ships, all the time sending remittances home to support and boost the living standards of those left behind, and a more abstract description of patterns of emigrant workers and migration since the 1965 changes in US immigration laws. 

Points stood out to me, as new and unexpected:

1. the importance of the family network, emigrants providing money to those left behind, who in turn provide care for the children of those emigrant workers, possibly becoming closer to the child than their natural parent
2. the significance of cellphone technology in vanquishing distance and maintaining family ties., 
3. The variety of experiences, working all hours, getting involved in scams and means of making money on the side, or illegally, getting exploited by middle men and losing money through ill-advised expenditures (country rubes fleeced city slickers(.

Prediction: Classic Logroll--Harvey Aid Plus the Wall

A politico piece rehashing the NY/NJ grievances with TX Congress people, especially Sen. Cruz.  Since Harvey relief will be must-pass legislation, many people (i.e. me) predict that money for Trump's wall will be folded in with it, and Dems will vote for it.

Voting With Your Feet

. Some of us believe that immigrants are voting with their feet when they choose to come to the US rather than stay where they were born (we usually ignore people who choose other nations than the US to migrate to). Some conservatives believe in "voting with your feet"; the idea that people will move from heavily taxed and regulated states to more lightly taxed and regulated ones.  They point to the gains the southern and western states have made over the years as evidence this works.  And some point to migration from California to Idaho or Texas as examples.

Given the continued disparities among states on many measures, and my liberal bias/skepticism of low tax/regulation policies I'm not convinced. Recently the NYTimes did a piece on a subset of migration: the migration of college students from one state to another.  Lyman Stone picks up on that study and expands into an interesting  discussion here.