The New York Times reported that Florida has officially overtaken New York State in overall population. We are now #3!!! As a transplanted New Yorker (like10% of Florida’s population), I was a little sad. When I was born, New York had the largest population with California a distant second. Texas and Florida were not even in the top ten states. New York had industry and large companies, not only in my hometown of New York City, but throughout the state from Niagara Falls to Buffalo to Rochester to Syracuse, Troy and Albany.

Unfortunately, New York did not pay attention to the basics. The state and local governments thought they could tax and regulate industry indiscriminately without end. Both local and state governments looked at business and productive individuals as “marks” for the taking. These companies and individuals would pay and pay and the politicians would take and take.

At first, the government used those funds to build roads and infrastructure. An enviable state university system took shape. Some needed programs for the poor and even for the middle class were instituted. But politicians are politicians, so they began buying the votes of public employees by generous contracts, regulating businesses in every minute aspect and providing unsustainable welfare benefits to the poor. By 1975, when New York City was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, close to 40% of the population was either on the dole or had government jobs.

Today New York is the Empire State in name only. Through governmental policies and a changing economy, the state is no longer considered an economic powerhouse. New York City has survived and even thrived in spite of its prevailing governing philosophy due to its uniqueness. But now, New York City is more and more a place of the very rich and the very poor. The working middle class that I grew up as part of is becoming less and less of the population because the businesses that would employ them have left the state.

Florida is now the third most populous state in the nation.  It has no income tax and comparatively few social programs. What it does have is an overabundance of government and nonprofit organizations – neither of which produce more national wealth. There is transference of dollars received from taxes and donations from the wealth-producing members of society to governmental and nonprofit employees in salaries and benefits. Both governmental and nonprofit employees now earn more than their counter parts in private industry.

Just like New York did in the 1960’s ‘70’s and 80’s, Florida by transferring dollars from one group to another without creating any new wealth will arrive at the same place. The state and our country cannot continue on this course without eventually bankrupting us. There is a place for both philanthropy and governmental service, but the bulk of those dollars cannot be used to pay employees and not build sustainable infrastructure, an educational system for our future economy and necessary social programs that lift the poor out of poverty by increasing their employment opportunities. Simple math tells us that a decreasing private sector cannot fund a larger and larger public one.