Just look up countries that had high taxes. Look at NY, they have to keep raising taxes from higher income people moving out. Reversing the increases worked just fine for Denmark, they ended up doing very well after cutting taxes back down, but that takes more guts to say "we're going to have a few years of major budget cuts before we can attract new talent again." Taxing the rich only works if there are rich people.

I do think you underestimate dramatically how easy it is to move. They don't even need to sell their home, they probably already have one in a lower tax state that all they need to do is stay in the other home more days than the state here. I think people confuse the challenges someone earning $40k may have moving and someone who earns $5M a year, it's as easy as signing paperwork.

I am fortunate enough to have worked a lot of hours in my 20s and can pick up and go if my kids school starts to have teacher cuts or if the state now tries to raise taxes on me. I already once left a state that raised taxes on working folks when the rich left, I can easily do it again. From the sounds of it, many people on this discussion think moving is hard and that leads me to believe they wouldn't be able to leave as easily as I could if conditions suffer. Just to be clear, do I think this one measure is doom and gloom, absolutely not. I don't believe enough people would leave that we will have catastrophic layoffs of teachers, but I do think there will be some issues 3 or 4 years down the line. Add that to the highest electricity rates in the US, my property taxes up are 40% since I moved 5 years ago, the cost of produce seems to be increasing a little more than other parts of the country, eggs which used to be the cheapest source of protein is up 1,100% in MA but no where else in the country is anywhere near that increase, heating costs are growing at a crazy rate; when you compound it all, we aren't making smart thought-out decisions in MA. It seems we are going for legislation based on talking points rather than looking at the full consequences of our policies.