Growing States Have Right to Work Laws; Declining States Do Not

According to the  Albany Times Union:

New York’s [population] percentage increase was just 0.1 percent making it the 41st fastest-growing state in terms of percentage increase. Idaho was the fastest growing at 2.2 percent from July 1, 2016 to July 1, 2017, according the Census Bureau.  

The high-tax, pro-union states are the slowest-growing or declining while the low-tax, right to work states are the fastest growing: 

Right behind Idaho, with increases were Nevada at 2 percent; Utah, 1.9 percent; Washington; 1.7 percent; and at 1.6 percent each, Florida and Arizona.  

Only one of the high-population-growth states, Washington, is not a right to work state.  

According to Governing.com, the states with declining populations include Illinois, New Mexico, Maine, and Vermont, which don't have right to work laws. Vermont is the state that has repeatedly elected Bernie Sanders. It has among the worst population declines in the country.

West Virginia passed its right to work law in 2016, so although it has had a declining population and numerous other problems, it will be interesting to see whether its declines start to reverse as it deregulates. Vermont is the state that has repeatedly elected Bernie Sanders. It has among the worst population declines in the country.

The only state with a declining population and a longstanding right to work laws is Mississippi.

Trump versus Sanders

The Wall Street Journal blog reports that Bernie Sanders aims to win Donald Trump's supporters' votes, for they are anxious about the economy, whose decline Sanders blames on greed.  Greed, of course, has always existed, and there is no evidence that there is more greed now than there was in the free market period of American history, when real wages grew at 0.5% to 2.5% per year.

Mr. Sanders is right: There is little difference between Mr. Trump and him. Both are big government advocates. Mr. Sanders sees government redistribution as the cure to greed, an absurd, impossible plan, and Mr. Trump sees government immigration restrictions as the cure to job loss, an equally absurd non-sequitur.

While Hitler, like Trump, was a racist, he was also, like Sanders, a national socialist. The twenty-five-point Nazi plan of 1920 contains much overlap with Mr. Sanders's views, albeit Sanders's Brooklyn Jewish background may not have been to Hitler's taste.

Point six of the Nazi twenty-five-point plan, for instance, was nearly identical to Sanders's position on immigration: "Non-citizens may live in Germany, but there will be special laws for foreigners living in Germany."

The Nazis also agreed with Mr. Sanders's redistributionist schemes, as in points ten and eleven: "Every citizen should have a job. Their work should not be selfish, but help everyone. Therefore we say...No one should live off money from rents or other income unless they have worked for that money."

Like Sanders, the Nazis hoped to repeal greed.  Since greed is a natural impulse like sexual desire or hunger, aiming to repeal greed opens the door to repression and ultimately murder, as has been the case with a long list of large-scale socialist states over the past century.

The Nazis' immigration policies, redistributionist schemes, and opposition to selfishness parallel  Bernie Sanders's platform. The American left is a reincarnation of the Nazi movement, with the racist (but not anti-Semitic) element excised.

Walter Block Speaks to My Classes at Brooklyn College

Professor Walter Block, famed libertarian economist and Brooklyn College alum, spoke to my classes on November 3, 2015.  Block spoke about his impressions of Bernie Sanders when they were classmates together at Brooklyn. (Sanders later transferred to the University of Chicago.) Block talked about the minimum wage and victimless crimes.