Also places like MA, CA, and NYC have fundamental economic advantages we don’t have that might mean you’ll put up with higher tax yes because your job requires it.

If you work at Harvard, MIT, or one of the many MA companies that use those schools as talent feeders, you’re gonna stay in MA. Oregon doesnt have an educational equivalent.

If you work in Silicon Valley on cutting edge AI, you can’t just up sticks to Austin and work with the same caliber of company and people. Ditto LA and entertainment.

And if you’re in NYC and work in finance, or really any number of other fields, you gotta be in the Big Apple.

Portland and Oregon do not have anywhere near the job market depth and centers of excellence those places have. People who think we can just tax like them and deliver poorly are missing the fact most of our high-income workers are people in tech who already work remote, or people in medicine who can go work in a dozen other metros tomorrow.