<p>I live in a major city with a toll loop. The toll was being colleected to either pay off bonds or privatization. The road was paid for about 10 or 15 years ago. </p>
<p>Some reporter asked the county recently whether there is any intent to stop collecting toll at some point and the answer was no, we use the money somewhere else now.</p>
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<p>I don’t think that you can say that for New Hampshire.</p>
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<p>NH is a donor state.</p>
<p>Low tax area might have low cost of living and pay less in wages, but again be careful, follow the money and see where the money is coming from. For example, with roads, a lot of the low tax states get a lot more funding from the federal government to pay for it, the same with other things…there are certain things that the lower cost of living cannot make up for, cost of materials, for example, doesn’t change much no matter where you live. More importantly, with things like education many of the low tax areas, with some exceptions, also have some of the lowest achieving schools in the country…one of the biggest problem we have in discussions of taxes and such is that a lot of what is paid for and where is hidden, plenty of people in the Tea Party movement, for example, who tell you they get nothing from the government and pay for others, in fact have a wealth of benefits they aren’t even aware of. Like I said,a lot of the low tax states also are places that get a lot more back from Uncle Sam then they pay in, in part because they don’t have the revenue to do it themselves.</p>
<p>@texaspg-</p>
<p>That doesn’t surprise me at all, that they would be using toll revenue elsewhere. I suspect they couldn’t totally get rid of tolls, if for the fact that the roads are going to need maintenance and it is likely that the highway trust funds to pay for road repair are underfunded already, but even so, I suspect they are using it for general revenue. It is an example of something I mentioned in my original post, that when states cut taxes or are low or no income tax, they often turn to other forms of revenue, like in this case tolls, to make up the difference, and tolls like many of the ‘replacement revenue’ tend ot be regressive in nature.</p>
<p>Most local/city roads receive no or very little fed money. Most goes to larger interstates and US highways.</p>
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<p>When I was last in Omaha on business I had to stay for several days. They had ripped down almost everything old, and the place had no character at all. (Except for a small area near the stockyards.) You could have been anywhere. And they rolled up the sidewalks at night: absolutely no street life at all. No one walking around, no restaurants, no nothing. You couldn’t go to a movie: they were all out in malls somewhere. After consulting with the front desk staff at the hotel, I eventually took a cab to Council Bluffs. (And literally not one single person I asked could tell me why it had that name. I eventually looked it up.)</p>
<p>Yes, this was at least 20 years ago, but unless the place has undergone a transformation, I wouldn’t be eager to move there either.</p>
<p>Is it considered deceiving the public though if they originally told everyone we are building this road but we have no money and once the road is paid for, it will be an asset to the city and the toll will be removed?</p>
<p>It’s not the size of the town, it’s the lifestyle. A town of 50,000 can have a walkable downtown, beautiful mountains or lakes nearby, wonderful music and theater, you name it. A city of two million can be a giant strip mall. If I were choosing a place to live in the Midwest, Iowa City or Ann Arbor might be higher on the list than some cities many times bigger.</p>
<p>Add NC to the list of Republican governored states that will be moving towards reduction or elimination of personal and corporate income taxes while “consumption” taxes are increased, including sales tax on groceries.</p>
<p>Consolation, if you haven’t been to Omaha in 20 years, then you really don’t have a basis for commenting. </p>
<p>We lived in Omaha for a number of years. We left in 1990, and hadn’t been back until my husband returned for a med school reunion a few years ago. He was quite astounded at how much it had changed. We had lived on the far western edge of the city limits. Cornfields were across the street from us. Omaha has grown up around our old neighborhood.</p>
<p>We have good friends, physicians originally from a large east coast city, who moved to Omaha 15 years ago and have loved it. Omaha has two medical schools, and two major medical centers. The weather can be extreme, and it isn’t New York City. But it is a lovely place, built on wooded, rolling hills along a major river. West of Omaha, away from the historical influence of the river, the geography changes to what we think of as the Great Plains. The sky is huge in a way people living among tall buildings or wooded eastern suburbs can’t imagine.</p>
<p>I have only skimmed this thread, so forgive me if this was said already. States without state income tax get money from their residents by other means…8.25% sales tax in TX vs none in OR,for example. I’m sure every state resident here could provide an example . In TX, we pay over$12,000 property tax every year on a house with a current resale value of $450,000.
They’re gonna get you coming or they’re gonna get you going…</p>
<p>In the high tax states, they get you coming and going. NYC has state and local income taxes, both. The toll to cross from our borough to another is $15. A local bridge costs that much. Who read the article about bankrupt San Bernadino and all it’s troubles? Some high states, like mine, still have horrible schools.</p>
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<p>NH has no general sales or income tax.</p>
<p>Our property tax rate is about the same as yours though.</p>
<p>It you want to pay less in property taxes, buy a less expensive house.</p>
<p>One place to save money: legislator salaries and pensions.</p>
<p>We pay our legislators $100/year + free tolls.</p>
<p>We were in Omaha many years ago. I rather like the place except for one thing. We drove there from Missouri. There were tornadoes just behind us and they followed us to Omaha. We were just sitting down to lunch when we heard a siren. So we took off East and it followed us into Iowa.</p>
<p>I’m not a big fan of tornadoes. Cold I can deal with.</p>
<p>Mostly.</p>
<p>"One place to save money: legislator salaries and pensions.</p>
<p>We pay our legislators $100/year + free tolls."</p>
<p>Ours get $7,200 per every-other-year session if I remember it right. Not sure how having legislators having to rely on other means gets taxpayers their best bang for the buck, in your state or mine,</p>
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<p>You don’t get the folks that are just in it for the perks that kowtow to the leadership to vote for stuff that they’ll repay you with jobs for your relatives and committee heads.</p>
<p>Wait, aren’t we on the same side on this?</p>
<p>Paying leaders less than minimum wage = leaders who need outside money.</p>
<p>Or someone that is retired or someone reasonably well-off or someone that has a spouse working or someone that can take a year off from work.</p>
<p>I really like that, it keeps out the career pols, and it makes it a service commitment. There’s no incentive to make government bigger since you’ll be back on the outside making a living soon enough yourself. Seems like it would almost cause a natural term limit situation.</p>
<p>Or someone that is retired or someone reasonably well-off or someone that has a spouse working or someone that can take a year off from work.</p>
<p>Or someone who is in the pocket of lobbyists, which I would put as most likely .</p>