Huckabee vs. Romney
State+Local Tax Burden

Summary

As a percent of income, their respective states saw a per year tax burden increase of:
Huckabee & Arkansas: 0.11%
Romney & Massachusetts: 0.175%

In terms of actual, inflation-adjusted dollars, their respective states saw a per year tax burden increase of:
Huckabee and Arkansas: $70.98
Romney and Massachusetts: $139.19

Analysis That Yields These Statistics

Huckabee vs. Romney - Tax Burden as a Percent of Income

The following charts demonstrate the comparison between Huckabee and Romney with respect to tax burden as a percent of total income during their tenures as governor.

Arkanasas' Tax Burden as a Percent of Income
http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/442.html

Using 1996 and 2007 for Huckabee, we see that the state+local tax burden for Arkansans went from 10.1% of income to 11.3% of income for an increase of 1.2% over 11 years (Governor Huckabee serving for 10 and a half of those), or an average of .11% per year.

Massachusetts' Tax Burden as a Percent of Income
http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/460.html

Using 2002 and 2006 for Mitt Romney, we see that the state+local tax burden for Massachusettsians (?) went from 9.8% to 10.5% over 4 years for an increase of .7% over 4 years, or an average increase of .175% per year.

Conclusion:
Under Huckabee, increase of .11% per year.
Under Romney, increase of .175% per year.

Huckabee vs. Romney - Tax Burden in Actual Dollars (inflation adjusted to the year 2000)
http://www.pnreap.org/United_States/comparative-trends-analysis.php?indicator=Per_Capita_Income
(choose Arkansas then Massachusetts on the right, then click on "Generate & Display Output"; when the next screen appears, scroll down to the graph at the bottom: "Arkansas and Massachusetts: Per Capita Income, 1969-2006")

Arkansas' tax burden in actual dollars, inflation adjusted to the year 2000:
1996: $20,232 per capita income * 10.1% state+local tax burden = $2,043.43
2006: $24,804 per capita income * 11.1% state+local tax burden = $2,753.24

Increase over 10 years = $2,753.24 - $2,043.43 = $709.81
Increase per year = $70.98

Massachusetts' tax burden in actual dollars, inflation adjusted to the year 2000:
2002: $37,536 per capita income * 9.8% state+local tax burden = $3,678.53
2006: $40,336 per capita income * 10.5% state+local tax burden = $4,235.28

Increase over 4 years = $4,235.28 - $3,678.53 = $556.75
Increase per year = $139.19

Conclusion:
Under Huckabee, increase of $70.98 per year.
Under Romney, increase of $139.19 per year.

What is the original link for that? That is some great stuff there...

I did some googling to come up with the tax-burden-as-percent-of-income charts for Arkansas and Massachusetts:

Arkansas - http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/442.html
Massachusetts - http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/460.html

And then also the page where you can run a comparison of Arkansas and Massachusetts that yields the chart of their per capita income figures:

http://www.pnreap.org/United_States/comparative-trends-analysis.php?indicator=Per_Capita_Income

On a separate note, I'm a novice at this, so I didn't know how to include the charts in the post. If anyone tells me how to do that, I'll see if I can update the post, or, if anyone wants to re-do my post with the charts included, that'd be super.

Also, I tried to be careful, but if anyone sees any errors in my math or methodology, point them out. I think that even if I messed up a little, the basic information is there indicating that Huckabee was, at worst, about the same as Romney, and at best, better than Romney when it came to the effect of their policies on the increase of the tax burden of their respective citizens.

The post was my running of the numbers from the charts mentioned above. It'd be great if anyone wanted to independently confirm my calculations (and the validity of the charts I used - they seemed to be official numbers from non-biased sites).

God bless,
D-Dawg

You know this is seriously some good work

Great job oh and to put links into a post right click the image select properties on the pop up menu and in the section marked location select to whole address and copy it with ctrl c

now type



So lets use this.





It's simple really html and java is a lot more confusing...

Thanks for the compliment and the info on including images!

The per capita chart doesn't seem to be included on its page as an image, at least not in the sense of being able to right-click on it as an image. The tax-burden-% charts are FlashPaper documents and don't seem to work like regular images.

Any other thoughts?

Thanks,
D-Dawg

This kind of side-by-side comparison is exactly what I'm talking about in this thread. Excellent job D-Dawg. I hope your findings are indeed accurate.

Is there a way to discount the local tax burden and just calculate the state tax burden alone?

D-Dawg...A+ research!

This seriously needs to be a sticky...

Earned my supreme kudos! Your math is flawless as I see it.
Thanks for the references!

Bump! Great stuff here! Why is Romney not called out on this stuff???

Props.

Well done.