Beyond The Ballot Box – Americans Are Voting With Their Feet – with Jonathan Williams – [Ep. 292]

Linda J. Hansen:  Thank you for tuning in today. My name is Linda J. Hansen, your host of the Prosperity 101® Podcast, where we seek to unleash the power of employers to reclaim and preserve America by Connecting Boardroom to Breakroom® and policy to paycheck. Employers educating employees about public policy issues that affect their jobs can lead to greater employee loyalty, engagement, and retention, and to an increased awareness of the blessings and responsibilities of living in a free society. 

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Thank you so much for joining with us today. It is a pleasure to have you in the audience. And as always, I have a great guest that you'll be anxious to hear from.

But before I introduce him, I want to say thank you to our prosperity partners, those who help us keep the podcast on the air with their financial gifts, large or small, we appreciate you and say thank you. We also want to invite you to be part of our new Employers Unleashed™ program. We are doing a monthly webinar where we discuss how to impact our culture, our seven mountains of culture, business, family, media, arts and entertainment, government and military, education and religion.

We look at how can we positively impact these mountains of culture in our businesses. You can do more than you think in a non-partisan, non-intrusive way to help really preserve the great freedoms and traditions we have in this nation. So please go to the website, prosperity101.com, prosperity101.com and look at some of these new resources and opportunities that we have. There's new booklets on there for you. Please join with us and help us promote the values that made this nation great. Well, someone who does that so well is a repeat guest.

I ask him to come back on a regular basis because Jonathan Williams from ALEC or American Legislative Exchange Council always has fantastic information for us as we go forward in planning for years and how we want to serve in our families and in our communities and our country. American Legislative Exchange Council or ALEC is the largest non-partisan voluntary membership organization of state legislators dedicated to the principles of limited government, free markets and federalism. And I don't know if you've noticed, but there has been a mass exodus from many states across the nation.

We've seen businesses move out of California, businesses and billionaires move out of New York. Why? Why is this exodus?

Why are people moving to states with different policies and how can that affect you? Well, we often talk about these things with Jonathan because he studies this and this is part of what ALEC helps everyone understand. So Jonathan, thank you so much for being here. It's just a pleasure to have you back again.

Jonathan Williams: Well, thanks so much, Linda, for the kind introduction and having me back and Prosperity 101® and all the great work that you guys do. It's just so great to come back and give you some of the updates of what's happening across our 50 laboratories of democracy as we often talk about.

Linda J. Hansen: Yeah, I love that you call it that, the laboratories of democracy, because we can really see what works and what doesn't. And one of the things that I always ask you to discuss is your Rich States, Poor States guide that ALEC publishes. And it is so informative and people can see so clearly the policies that help people flourish, the policies of freedom and prosperity.

And we can begin to see what works in this state versus what works in another state or what doesn't work and really hurts families and individuals. So can you talk about the Rich States, Poor States guide and what you've seen in the most recent data and information that's gone into that?

Jonathan Williams: Well, absolutely. It's as you know, Linda, we've talked about several times. I think this was my day one job at ALEC in 2007 when I came on board and Art Lapper and Steve Moore, our great friends and partners on this project, came to ALEC and said, wouldn't it be great if the organization would host and publish annually a publication to give legislators and concerned citizens all around the country a way to measure their state against the other 49 to see how are they doing and benchmark themselves, right? Those things that you measure, you continue to improve upon as a great management leader and teacher, Peter Drucker always taught us, right? And so it's very clear now over 19 years, what's working and what's not per the laboratories of democracy.

And what we do in Rich States, Poor States, as you know, is really give legislators the ability to look not only at the outlook but also the performance. And what are the policies that are shaping the performance and what are those things that they can do as state lawmakers to change the course of their state? And that's, I think, the important thing, because there are so many groups that are putting out rankings these days.

Some are not worth the ink and paper used to print them on, frankly. But in Rich States, Poor States, one of the things that we focus on are things that lawmakers, whether they're in Madison or in Lansing or here in Richmond in Virginia, what can they do to make their state better off and not just these ethereal things that are based on tourism or mountains and beaches and things that they can only hope to change. And so we know that these 15 factors, taxes and labor policy and regulations are really the three big buckets that we look at to measure the state's economic outlook.

We know that they matter for economic growth, and we have a great time series now that goes back 19 years to show some tremendous gains in some states and some unfortunate, tremendous losses for other states, depending on where those lawmakers have decided to make those changes when it comes to policy.

Linda J. Hansen: Well, it truly is a great historical document in the sense where we can look and see what are those trends that have been beneficial and really serving families and communities. And so as you look at the most recent guide, which state is number one?

Jonathan Williams: Well, no surprise. Once again, Utah is number one. They've been number one for all 19 editions of Rich States, Poor States, and there's probably an entire episode that we could use on what is Utah's key to success.

And a few of the highlights of it, I think, are that they have really attacked the property tax problem that we are seeing. As I travel, as you know, Linda, probably 30 plus states a year working with lawmakers. Property taxes have been the number one concern nearly everywhere I've gone, in that they're taxing seniors out of their homes, as well as the first time homebuyer age has now surpassed 40 years old in the United States for the first time. 

And so it's clearly an inhibitor to the affordability of young families to buy their first house and have that nest egg of building equity for themselves and what could be their largest savings ability as a family long term to make themselves better off and enhance their standard of living.

And so Utah has really tackled property taxes through its truth in taxation law that we can get into, if you'd like, in more detail. But it really addresses this rise in assessments. The values are going up all around the country.

Local units of government are really hoping that people don't pay attention in some cases because they're pocketing the difference. They will say, hey, we didn't raise your taxes, but you look at your bill like I did and saw it went up $700 from last year. Yet my local government is telling me they didn't raise my taxes.

How does that work? And of course, that is because of assessments going up through the roof and really not having a lid on government spending. As you know, I'm a huge fan of Colorado's Taxpayer Bill of Rights and other ways that we could limit the size and scope of growth of government.

And if we don't do that with local governments, it's my view that we're probably not going to be very successful in limiting the property tax increases in the future. And so Utah has got a great way of tackling that. They've also become a flat tax state now and more recently, many, many other states followed Steve Forbes' wisdom and got away from the soak the rich, class warfare, progressive income taxes that unfortunately were created in Wisconsin, which was the first state that created a personal income tax.

But now we're seeing a movement towards states trying to move to flatten income tax and become fairer when it comes to the ways that they tax their residents. And then they also attacked the issue of the unfunded pension liabilities for public employees and really thought about how do we provide flexibility for young employees coming into the government workforce? So among others, Utah has also really looked at ways to address the federal funds coming into the state of Utah.

Here we are as of this week, perhaps hitting $40 trillion of national debt, a huge thing for all of us to really think about in terms of how do we come out the other side of this as a country. But if I were a state policymaker, probably the biggest concern I would have to say if now the average state budget has nearly 40% of it coming from federal funds, what do I do when that gravy train ends? There's no such thing as a free lunch as Milton Friedman always reminded us, but do I really want to be the state policymaker on the hook to say if Medicaid FMAP is reduced, for instance, from 90% and the Obamacare expansion population is something below that, do I really want to be the person that takes people off of that coverage or raise taxes to make up the difference?

And that's what Utah has gotten to. We could have an hour discussion on Utah. Those are just four, I think, the important lessons that we can learn from really one of the innovative states across the country over the last 20 years.

Linda J. Hansen: Well, we should have an hour discussion on that because that is something that every state can learn from. And as citizens, we need to really promote those policies and hold our legislative bodies accountable so we can look at the positives. But what are some of the negative things?

I can think of some horrendous policies that have come through states in the last couple years, and we're seeing the mass exodus from these states. Could you tell the audience a little bit about those things and what we're seeing and why it's so damaging to the individual, to the businesses, to the communities, and then really to our nation as a whole?

Jonathan Williams: Well, to think about it in bookends, Utah's number one and New York is number 50. And probably not a surprise to anybody who follows 50-state policy that New York is the most uncompetitive of states. And it also correlates pretty clearly with New York being a huge out-migration state to your point.

One of the key elements that we've tracked every year in rich states, poor states is how much Americans are voting with their feet away from places like New York, California, Illinois, et cetera, and towards freedom-loving states like Utah, Texas, Florida, Tennessee, and those that are really trying to become more competitive as they measure themselves and see that we need to keep up and surpass the states that we're competing with. New York, on the other hand, seems to be content in just doubling down on the things that clearly have not worked.

And then in the case of New York City, they've elected a socialist who wants to have government run grocery stores, right? Giving a whole new meaning to the idea of free market. Most people, when they think of free market, think about it in our sense versus government run grocery stores.

And so I think that New York's, really, their situation is to become even more dire as they continue to use more taxpayer resources to grow government and raise taxes even further. And then I think if anything, we're going to see really, as Thomas Sowell laid out in the conflict of visions, between the growth states and the states that are doubling down on these socialist economic ideas. One clear example, one that I just wrote about this last week, was the billionaires tax flawed idea in California, where they would be imposing a supposedly one-time tax of 5% on the net assets of individuals that are billionaires in the state.

Of course, this includes things like unrealized capital gains and the so-called value of all those assets that have not been realized, that may not be illiquid. So what we're seeing in the case of New York, according to the Hoover Institution, for instance, is that you've had a large percentage of its billionaires already relocate out of the state to avoid that tax, unsurprisingly. And among those individuals, you're not only losing that wealth tax collection, but then perpetual stream of personal income tax or other tax collections from those same individuals, where the researchers at Hoover suggest that the state of California may be in the negative already, even if the billionaires tax does pass when it's on the ballot this fall.

So those are a couple of the extreme examples. But obviously, there's lots of other bad examples of what states are doing as well. Thankfully, though, Linda, as you know, I'm a glass-half-full kind of guy.

I am very optimistic, because we have at least 25 or 30 states that are trying to become more competitive every single year. And that is going to continue to push those states that are in the middle, that are reluctant, states like Wisconsin, states like my home state of Michigan, that are divided government right now and trying to figure out which course they're going to follow. It's clear, based on our research, that if you summarize nearly 20 years of rich states, poor states into a sentence, it's be more like Florida and Texas and less like California and New York.

It's pretty clear. Do you want to be a growth state, or do you want to be a state that is hemorrhaging your most productive citizens, as well as those that are looking for a job? Because one of the things that we look at when we're talking about population changes, there's a lot of debate about why people move from state to state.

There are fake news economists out there that will tell you that people are only moving because of the weather. A, nobody's ever left California and gone to Texas for better weather. There's many great things to love about Texas. The weather is not better than the weather in California, as somebody that spent a lot of time in both of those states. But why they do leave is because they go for economic opportunity. They want to make their lives better off.

They want to make their kids' lives better off and their grandkids' lives better off. I was talking to Newt Gingrich about this not long ago, and I think he framed it in a really important way. As somebody that came from a city, Saginaw, Michigan, that was once 100,000 people, and I now think it's about 47,000 people here 50 or 60 years later from its high, do you want to be that community, or do you want to be that family that goes to church on Sunday and gets to have Sunday brunch with your kids and your grandkids that have all had the opportunity to stay in that community, to retain that family unit and retain that sense of being in a community and the civic institutions and all of that that happens when you retain population and you're a growing community?

On the other hand, places like Saginaw, you go back there, and unfortunately now it's a place where many people just say they're from, and whether their parents or their grandparents may be there, they're not having a Sunday dinner with their grandkids every week because there were no opportunities. And that's the downside. When you get it wrong to a family level, down to the personal level, we as economists oftentimes talk about this probably too much, and I'm guilty as anyone who's talking about this in big terms of GDP and just broad numbers, but what it comes down to, it comes down to the individual, right?

That's what this is all about. Free markets are about protecting individual liberty and the fact of protecting families and protecting communities.

Linda J. Hansen: Absolutely, and my kids, our adult children are scattered all over the country, and it followed where their opportunity was, and it's heartbreaking. We don't get together for Sunday dinners as often as we'd like. When we do get together, it's very, very special, but it always involves a trip.

It's either airplane or a long drive or whatever, and you just can't have that same level of engagement as you would if they were able to stay in the general area and be able to flourish in their field of expertise. I just think that's so important that you brought it down to the family level because honestly, we see families under attack too, and I'm sure in the Rich States, Poor States guide, it's mostly economic, but you can see the economic impact on the families, on the schools, on everything that happens within those communities. It's so affected by the policies, and as you know, my heart is to get employers to educate their employees about these things, help them understand that connection between policy and their paycheck, policy and their family's financial ability to do the things they want to do.

So what would you say to employers who might be a little afraid to talk about these issues with their employees? They might not know how to discuss it, but also why would you tell them it is imperative that they do so?

Jonathan Williams: Well, it's imperative to do so because it's a question of whether we want to continue in our American system that we've known or not. And I think we kind of hang in the balance here in the coming months and coming years. I mean, you have a key element in this country, unfortunately, that would like to take us in a very radically different direction than for what our founders intended, those that don't respect free markets and limited government and federalism and the rule of law and religious liberty and all the other key elements of going back and re-reading the Declaration of Independence, what was in the minds of the founders here 250 years ago. And, what did they put into the constitution to protect against those abuses that they saw with the strong central government and those of the King of England that didn't respect individual or personal freedoms or religious freedoms? 

And so I think there is an element, unfortunately, whether it is a radical Marxist ideology that is infiltrating parts of the political system, certainly it's infiltrated our universities. And so when kids and their grandkids go to universities, it's really important to think through how are we making sure that we're teaching civics education in this country?

But to your point on the employer side, it's imperative in that we have an opportunity to really help connect the dots for people to say, why is it that as an employer, I was able to expand in this state and give more raises and bonuses and give better working conditions and all the things that businesses can do when they're successful and they have more of their own money and that's not being taken up by big government regulations or taxes.

What are the things they can do on a pension contribution or education allowance or all the things that profit is not a dirty word, right? I mean, that's an important piece that oftentimes now even some business schools don't get right. My business school, a free market conservative business school, Northwood University in Michigan taught me that profit is a positive thing, right?

I mean, that's something we all should strive towards because when businesses are profitable, they're able to treat their employees better, they're able to treat their customers better and that's what the free market is all about, right? And so for us, it's so important being a public private partnership as an organization. We have nearly 2000 members around the country, whether they're legislators, the hardworking men and women that are in many cases really volunteering most of their time to serve their communities and their constituents.

But then we have those principled businesses that want to be engaged in the policy process and be advocates for free market ideas across the country. But the one thing that I will say, that question that I get often for when I'm out presenting about rich states, poor states is, what about all these new folks that are moving into our state? They're taking advantage of this new found economic freedom, but perhaps they're not connecting the dots.

And that's where the employer piece of it comes in, I think very clearly to say, why is it that you have a job or a better job or a better standard of living? You're able to afford a house or be able to even be able to afford private education in a new state. It's because of free market policies that led to us having success in a place like Texas or Florida or North Carolina or Tennessee that we would not have had if we stayed in New York or California.

Linda J. Hansen: Exactly. And I love that you say connect the dots. That's what I say often. And that's been my mission. And I tell people, we need to flip the script. You brought up education.

We can see the Marxist-jihadist influence in our culture and in our educational system. We can see it is really a playbook from the revolutionary attempts to take over a nation from within. And we can see it.

And now these people, these people have been educated improperly in terms of the truth about our government and the founding principles and the fact that our freedoms do not come from government. They come from God and our constitution, our founding principles are there to protect our freedoms, not to give us those freedoms. So we have to remember that what government gives, government can take away.

So we need to help people understand that. But we also need to flip that script. We have all of these workers in the workplace now. Millions of people who work for privately held or family-owned businesses, let alone the publicly owned businesses, but that they've not been educated on the things that you spoke about. And I say we are at a tipping point in our nation. If we do not turn this around and help people understand these basic policies of freedom and economic stability, we will lose our nation.

And it will take generations to regain what we have built here. And so I tell employers, you're at the last line of defense. We need you to re-educate these people in your workforce.

We need you to step up and give them simple information. That's why I have my Breakroom Economics® course that people can license and use in the workplace, 12 short lessons that just introduce these concepts. I have books and resources, the webinars I have.

I want to really help empower employers because, especially during the cancel culture years, so many people have been feeling afraid to speak out. But we can do so in such a way that just helps open the mind and helps them learn the questions to ask so they can discover these things for themselves. We don't have to tell them what to think or what to do or how to vote.

People will make the right decision when they get the right information. And so when we provide truth and information, like you have in rich states, poor states, and we provide truth by telling them how these policies affect our business or our community, people can make a more informed decision, and that helps everyone. So connecting those dots, flipping that script, we're so aligned in that.

Jonathan Williams: Oh, absolutely. And the work that you're doing with Prosperity101® is critical, and everyone should really take advantage of those resources that you provide to make an informed decision, regardless of how they end up voting. I mean, because it's just a clear issue of American citizenship, and our role as informed citizens to know the issues, know what it means in terms of the big policies at stake.

One of the big things, if I may, is with the other piece on this whole issue of where do we go as a country? As Reagan always would say, freedom's not passed along by the bloodstream. We're one generation away from its extinction if we don't continue to nourish it and to pass it along to our kids and our grandkids.

And that's so important. And one of the things that we at ALEC have been so involved in is just this movement to have a more parent and family-centered education system. And five years ago, somebody would have said that we would now have 20 states, roughly, that are universal education freedom states.

We would have been laughed out of the room. And coming out of the pandemic, we had our ALEC National Chairwoman from West Virginia, who's an immigrant from Venezuela, Senator Patricia Rucker, who led that HOPE scholarship debate and ended up winning and became Teachers Union enemy number one in West Virginia and beat them in one of the most competitive districts there here in the eastern panhandle towards the D.C. suburbs. 

And now here, over the last five years now, we've now seen, as I said, nearly 20 states become universal education freedom states where we've empowered parents to take charge over their kids' education and not just take the woke indoctrination of some of the worst public schools around the country, as we've seen in northern Virginia. Glenn Youngkin rightly pointed out and said parents shouldn't be involved in their kids' education, more or less, and to really take that message of empowerment. And it's not just about academics.

It's about those American values that are not being taught in so many cases. And yes, we're going to work to strengthen public education. At the same time, we have a great ALEC model policy about civics education.

So then they need to re-institute real American history, for instance, and teach the American basics, the original documents. And is it too much to ask to say when our children graduate from our K-12 system in public education that they should be able to take and pass the U.S. citizenship test? I mean, is that too much to ask that we could know the basics of our American history?

And then on the other hand, are we surprised that people are falling for these ideas of these socialist Marxist folks that are out there running for office nowadays, when they don't know our history and they don't know where we came from and they don't know these basics of what brings about this American exceptionalism and American liberty that we've seen over the last 250 years. And so that's something that's been a key priority of ours, along with our economic freedom and other work that we've done. 

Education freedom, I think that is going to be the generational breakthrough issue of our time. And going from nearly zero education freedom states to now 20 in the last half decade has been nothing short of miraculous. And we played a small part in it. It's been the men and women fighting that issue out in the states.

But here's where I think is going to be key, Linda, is when we're working with the business owners, with the men and women out there in the states that are thinking about all these different ideas being talked about right now, especially this fall, there's a concerted effort by the teachers unions and those that want to have government-commanded control over our kids' education to come back and have an Empire Strikes Back moment to say, we're going to take back that control back into the state government and into the teachers unions' hands. And right now there's an effort underway in Arizona to basically repeal and take away those hard-earned gains when it comes to school choice for those families across the state. I think it's 100,000 students that now qualify for education freedom in Arizona.

Much of that would be restricted and eventually taken away if a ballot measure passes, for instance, on the fall ballot. And the teachers unions in other states have been very successful at going to the ballot and talking about why school choice supposedly is harmful for people. And it's a huge disconnect, but I think it's going to be one of the biggest battles of our time.

Linda J. Hansen: That's so important to bring up, and that is why I work so hard to educate and help employers educate. And for those of you who really want to make sure you have your values represented in your workplace, too, there's so many resources available. Just contact me, not only for mine, but I can direct you to some other things.

We can make sure you get connected to the task forces and the information that are available through ALEC. And we want to help you help others so we can keep our country free. So I know you have to go, Jonathan.

So any closing comments before we close out the interview? And I also want people to know how to contact you.

Jonathan Williams: Well, we've got a great repository of information at ALEC.org. We've got the full Rich States Poor States study. You can also go to richstatespoorstates.org, which is really a dynamic way to see how your state ranks against the other 49. And also one of the things that we allow you to do, which is really fun. I know you and I have talked about how we've played around with the website, you can actually say, all right, if I'm in Wisconsin and I say my platform is to eliminate the income tax, what would that do to my ranking?

You can see right before your eyes on the website, toggle to a 0% tax rate

How will that change Wisconsin's ranking? Or, let's say, Michigan, we want to become a right-to-work state again. Those are the kind of things that we encourage not only policymakers and their staff, but concerned citizens all around the country to say, what would it take to become a top 10 state or not being in the bottom 10 anymore for a state like New York or something like that?

But then across the board, we've got tons of great other studies, whether it's education freedom, energy affordability, and our essential policy solutions, which is all of our key ALEC policy priorities, linking back to the ways that they've been successful in states and some of the heroes that are in the state legislative bodies that have helped lead the way on those. So I encourage all of your listeners to check those out, a great amount of information there. And we, as ALEC, have been around 50 plus years now to provide this as a public service to those that want to make a difference.

And I know that's why, we have so much in common, because you're talking with those employers that want to make a difference and work with their employees. And we've got a lot of great resources to check out.

Linda J. Hansen: Perfect. Well, thank you so much. And how can people contact you?

Johnathan Williams: Well, they can reach out through our website. They can also reach out to me at jwilliams@alec.org and I am happy to make a connection and be helpful in any way we can as an organization.

Linda J. Hansen: Wonderful. Well, thank you so much. And I look forward to having you back again.

I know you have to sign off now. But thank you for taking time for this important interview. Thank you.

Johnathan Williams: Well, thanks, Linda. I look forward to coming back again.

Linda J. Hansen: Thank you again for tuning in to this episode of the Prosperity 101® podcast. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please, subscribe, share, and give us a great review. Don’t forget to visit Prosperity101.com to sign our Employers Unleashed™ pledge, to access our entire podcast library, or to discover resources for use in your workplace. Let us know how we can serve you. Contact us today at Prosperity101.com.