Democratic governors lower taxes
From dKosopedia
Conventional wisdom says that in states where Republicans are in political control the tax burden would be lower. Right?
According to a republican-leaning thinktank, The Tax Foundation, it's the other way around. Putting republicans in control of state and local taxes means more taxes, electing democrats means paying less taxes.
Read The Tax Foundation data for yourself.
For each of the 50 states, the Tax Foundation measures the amount of state and local taxation as a proportion of state income. Then the Tax Foundation ranked the 50 states from 1-50 with #1 being the highest-taxed state as a proportion of state income, and #50 being the least-taxed state as a proportion of state income.
The average rank of states with a Democratic Governor is 26.7, while the average rank of states with a Republican Governor is 24.6.
That means if you want lower taxes, you have to vote for a democratic governor.
States whose upper and lower houses are controlled by Democrats have an average Tax Foundation ranking of 21.3. A state whose upper legislative house is controlled by Republicans, however, has an average Tax Foundation ranking of 20.9. In other words, the states with upper houses run by democrats tend to having slightly lowert taxes.
Conclusion
It turns out that having a Republican as governor or having Republicans control the lower legislative house of a state actually leads to higher taxes.
Massachusetts
The part of America the republicans spent the most time demonizing in 2004, Massachusettes ranks 36 out of 50. Massachusetts, taxes and spends less than 35 other states, including the republican bastions of Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Utah.