The six states with the highest tax burdens are Hawaii, New York, Vermont, California, Maine, and Illinois, based on income, property, sales, and excise taxes. The six lowest are New Hampshire, Wyoming, Tennessee, South Dakota, Florida, and Oklahoma. Notice anything?
All the highest-taxed areas are Democrat-controlled, while the lowest are led by a Republican Governor. Look deeper. While recorded tax rates are wildly higher in Democrat states, so are the “hidden” taxes.
Electricity costs in Democrat states are exorbitant, highest in Democrat-led Hawaii (27.71 cents per kilowatt-hour), New York 26.65, Vermont 30.63, California 31.58, Maine 28.25, and Illinois 18.09.
At the same time, electricity costs in the Republican-led states are lowest, 5.79 cents per kWh in Wyoming, 5.94 in New Hampshire, 6.38 in Tennessee, 6.46 in South Dakota, 6.49 in Florida, and 7.0 in Oklahoma.
Energy costs in these overtaxed Democrat states average 27.15 cents per kWh. Energy in low-tax Republican-led states averages 13 cents per kWh. Anything occur to you?
Everywhere, Democrats make life expensive; Republicans make it affordable. If you live in one of these Democrat-controlled states, you pay more combined taxes than in Republican-led states and more than twice as much for your electricity. You lose twice.
If you are unlucky enough to live in a Democrat-controlled state like Maine, which saw a 36 percent jump in electricity costs in 2024 – the highest in the nation – the reality is far starker. That state absorbed $2.2 billion in federal subsidies for solar and wind power buildouts, with nothing to show for it.
Like many Democrat-led states, Maine’s leadership pretends they are helping ratepayers with green buildouts and their “net energy plan,” which taxes fossil fuel users to build out solar. It is a snow job.
Democrat leaders – facing scrutiny for high taxes and hidden costs – fudge the truth or just lie, making these “green subsidies” appear to be helpful to ratepayers, when they absolutely are not.
Examples are revealing. Maine’s out-of-lunch Democrat governor – clinically obsessed with President Trump – is a perfect example of deceit in action, poor and shameless leadership.
After spending the state into the fourth highest tax burden and highest energy jump, she claimed – after spending $2.2 billion in federal subsidies – “renewable energy” generated 57 percent of Maine’s in-state energy. A fabrication intended to warm her constituency, as the State shivers.
Under Biden, wind and power were a one-time gift, $2.2 billion federal subsidy – recently cut off. They were never sustainable, market-driven, or in-state generation; just goosing the system, putting federal money into wind and solar, which otherwise fails. This was a handout, nothing more.
Look at that 57 percent closer. While most Mainers depend on oil, gas, and wood, 37 percent of the state’s “renewable” energy is hydroelectric power. It is not wind or sun. If you deduct 37 percent from the 57 percent claim, you get 20 percent tied to solar and wind, all handouts, most out-of-state.
To ice this bold Democrat lie – like in so many pushed by blue states – look at the news. Maine’s Governor wants to shut down four big hydro-energy dams on a major river – to “save the salmon,” while dealing a body-blow to Maine businesses and ratepayers, an eight billion dollar economic hit.
Bottom line? Modern, progressive Democrat leaders lie openly and appear not to care. They are about power and ideology. They drive taxes up, promote unchecked spending, no accountability. They are not stewards but spenders.
To be clear: Limitless spending, driven by unaccountable Democrat leaders and ideology, ends in a death spiral. Maine is in one. Other Democrat-controlled states are not far behind. To continue wildly spending and wildly taxing for ideology is unsustainable. To keep the republic, it has to stop.
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, Maine attorney, ten-year naval intelligence officer (USNR), and 25-year businessman. He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (North Country Press, 2018), and “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024). He is the National Spokesman for AMAC. Today, he is running to be Maine’s next Governor (please visit BobbyforMaine.com to learn more)!
Democrat in modern times is exactly equal to despot. Democrats are all about tyranny and dictatorship. They are the very people we fought a revolution against beginning in April 1775. If you’re an American, throw these people out of office.
Washington state is another blue boondoggle. Although we haven’t got exorbitant electricity rates, and no income tax, our legislators keep trying to institute a tax on the wealthy, which will filter down to us. The minimum wage just increased again, which will mean price hikes, and all kinds of regulatory requirements were recently enacted. We’re just frogs in a slowly heating pot!
RBC, very good article. I understand the frustration you express as I live in another grossly mismanaged, heavily blue state: Illinois. Gov. Pritzker is taxing and spending us into oblivion. Years of getting “free” are responsible a voter base that will only vote for any politician with a D beside their name on the ballot. In fact, a lot of positions only have a Democrat candidate to vote for.
The solution? Leave… and the citizens are doing that by the thousands. In terms of outward migration, California and New York have the highest number, but in terms of percentage of total population, Illinois is either #1 or close thereto. Unfortunately for people like me & my wife, family (grandkids) make it impossible for us to leave..but that may change.
Best of luck on your quest to takeover the governorship in Maine.
Environmentalists should join the fight against immigration.
My parents, poor folks from the time they were born, got married during the Depression, and suffered all their lives with those facts. They did the best they could, making ‘stuff’ last as long as possible. “Use it up. Wear it out. Make it last, or do without.” And I watched and learned from them. To this day I still save paper bags and things, and avoid buying something NEW, when what I have now is kinda beat up, but still functional.
My folks, and their kinfolks, believed in the Democrats. My Mother, especially, would get all upset, even 30 or so years ago, if anyone said the least thing about Democrats. “Democrats are for the poor people! Those Republicans just mess everything up!” Both of my folks are gone now, but what she said still rings in my mind. And I am old enough now to see how she came to that conclusion. During the Depression, FDR put folks to work, came up with plans to help the country come back from those hard times.
Now look at us. The roles have been reversed, up to a point. Dumba$$ocrat$ have wrecked the USA with 20 million or so illegal aliens, and the Dumba$$ocrat$ are falling all over themselves helping those folks at the expense of everyone else. Yet if she was still living, I can hear her saying ‘The Democrats are for the poor people!”
I can still remember the politicians of the 50s and 60s and 70s, when it DID seem like the Democrats were for us Common Trash in America. But THAT Democratic party is so long past, and never coming back…
The fault is with us, the people, we are comfortable knowing that someone else will take care of us and will decide what is needed. We never grew up, no one demanded it or expected it. Perhaps because our parents went through depression and WW2, they wanted better and easier life for us, give us what they never had, we did the same with our children and it snowballed. To change this comfort of dependency we’d have to take responsibility and be willing to accept the hardship that comes with it. Be a man ,maybe that is why dems. are confusing the genders, man is dangerous specie to them.
Democrats function as King Midas in Reverse — that is, everything they touch turns to crap! Dems are also almost universally Charter Members of the “180º Club” (that is, whatever position they espouse or embrace, the exact opposite is usually true or an eminently more optimal, reasonable, efficacious and productive solution). Dems 24/7 live true to their motto: “We will snatch DEFEAT out of the jaws of victory!”
Rats only steal, kill, pervert, and destroy.
imo
DON’T TELL US THE PROBLEMS !!! WE ALL KNOW THEM !!
TELL US THE SOLUTIONS ?!? IF YOU DON’T HAVE ANY, JUST BE QUITE (SHUT-UP) AND GO AWAY !!! DSC