Blue-State Energy and Tax Policies: The High Cost of Irrational Voting Habits
If you’re paying more at the pump or for your monthly utility bill in California, New York, New Jersey or Hawaii, there is no mystery here and the hit your pocketbook is taking is no coincidence. Eight of the ten states with the highest gasoline prices are run by Democratic governors or legislatures, according to AAA. Those same states also post the highest average electricity rates, according to analysis from the Institute for Energy Research. And so-called Blue states also impose the highest state income tax rates in the nation, with California at 13.3 percent, Hawaii at 11 percent, New York at 10.9 percent, and New Jersey at 10.75 percent.
This is not geography or bad luck, but a direct result of policy decisions made over many years by one-party governments that chose to treat energy as a political weapon rather than a foundation for human flourishing. Unfortunately, voters in these blue states increasingly appear to have lost the ability to connect the cause – their irrational voting habits – with the direct effect of higher and higher costs. How else to explain why they keep electing the same people and their fellow Democrats over and over again expecting different results?f It’s a special kind of mass insanity.
The Institute for Energy Research laid it out clearly in its recent mapping of electricity rates. States with the highest costs share a common set of choices: aggressive mandates forcing utilities to buy more wind and solar, participation in programs like the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, the early retirement of reliable coal and nuclear plants, and repeated blocks on new natural gas pipelines. Higher electricity rates are simply the receipt for those decisions. Blue states have layered on renewable portfolio standards that distort markets, lengthened permitting timelines through endless environmental reviews, and created regulatory environments that scare off investment in dispatchable power. The costs land on ratepayers every month.
