September 12, 2008
Raleigh News & Observer Cites Tax Foundation in Fact Check on U.S. Senate Ad
"Ad parodies Olympics to attack Hagan record"
Every year, the Tax Foundation, a Washington-based think tank, analyzes the combined state and local tax burden in all 50 states. According to its overall ranking, North Carolina had the 17th highest burden in 2006.
The think tank does not break out the rankings by region, but the John Locke Foundation, a conservative think tank in Raleigh, has compared those numbers to other states in the region. The Locke Foundation defines the Southeast as Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.
The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, the only federal agency to define the Southeast, includes those states as well as Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi and West Virginia. If those states were included, North Carolina would have been second highest in 2006, after Arkansas.
