It’s hard to correlate education success with taxes at the state level. I wonder why so much money taken in at the state level, e.g. lotteries, never reaches the pupil. Too much rake off?

“Crime, high taxes, high costs, nasty traf­fic, cor­rupt gov­ern­ment, union­ized, and bad schools” in the blue states I wager are no worse than in other states with the same population density. Low tax states tend to have the worst public schools which of course isn’t a consideration for retirees. Those states also cannot afford good public services so that the rich will have to supply privately some of the things that the government supplies in the blue states. Unionization has been a declining factor for five decades to where it is mostly just a hot button for conservatives. Blue state places with nasty traffic also tend to have decent public transportation; warm states rely almost solely on private autos which turns what might be modest traffic into nightmares with Atlanta and Houston perhaps the worst. The red states have no bragging rights on corruption and sleazy politics. If you’re a culture vulture, you want New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Boston; if bass fishing is your thing, you want Arkansas, Georgia, and the like.

Just ask NY where there taxpayers went.