[screamingchief]

Originally Posted by The Champ

Economic factors are important to me - but one thing they don't address here is the standard of living. Higher tax burdens often have better roads, schools, etc. Some things I'm willing to pay extra for.

Well,to be honest the roads down here are better than pretty much all the states between here & Wisconsin,I can safely say that as I've driven back and forth many times,and I can always tell once I've left the state of Texas,as the ride gets a little bumpier almost immediately upon crossing the state line,and the further north you go,the worse it gets.

That's because any state that has harsh winters and thus salts their roads are pretty much always going to have worse roads than a state like Texas has,does'nt matter how much tax money a higher taxed state dumps in that bottomless pit,they'll never catch up,mother nature sees to that.

Wisconsin is a tax hungry state,and their roads & highways pretty much all suck b@lls,BTDT,same with Illinois.

Even Arkansas has some pretty rough highways,especially that stretch between Little Rock & Memphis,that is just horrible,though that's largely due to the high volume of truck traffic on that road,that stretch of higway is always loaded with semis,LOL.

Schools (K-12),yeah they kinda suck down here,but I dont have kids,so that does'nt necesarily directly affect guys like me much,so I dont really keep track of those sorta things,but it seems like schools are pretty much screwed up everywere these days.

Originally Posted by The Champ

They also don't take into account leisure time activities or medical care - things that are important to retirees.

I cant even begin to dream of doing 1/4 of the things that are available to do down here,and I've lived here on & off since the mid eightees,and every year it seems like there are more and more things to do,so it's pretty much impossible to do everything that's available.

You can easily schedule things every week (weekend) of the year if you wanted to.

The two negatives down here in that respect are the hot summers,and the long drives,if you can get past those two things,it's an awsome place to live as far as leisure time activities are concerned.

Lets see you go golfing,fishing,or drag racing in January-February up in Wisconsin,LOL.

And medical care here is pretty good too,definitely better than it is back where I lived in Wisconsin (Racine),that city is well known as having seriously substandard medical facillities,most folks wont even use the hospital there,they go to Milwaukee (Froedert) or down into Illinois instead.

Just cause a state takes in a ton of taxes does'nt mean that money is actually making it back to the taxpayers,fact is most of ends up going to the non-taxpayers that the state ends up supporting.

They dont do nearly as much of that down here as they do up there.

As for the crime statistics,those look that way because states like Texas have more than just one major metropolitan area to factor into those numbers,Texas being a really big state has like 4-5 major metro areas to take into account,so that tends to stack up the numbers somewhat compared to less populous states with only one or two metro areas to account for.

Texas has like 25.6 million people.

Next closest state in the top 10 has like 8 million (Virginia).

So it's not all that surprising that a state with 1/3 less people would have less crime as well.

There are only like 2 states in the "worst" states that have populations between Texas and Virginia (New York & Michigan),and those two both have big metro areas that are known for having relatively high crime rates.

So I can kinda see why crime rate is at the bottom of the list of criteria.

Anyhow,a person could do a whole lot worse than retiring down here,that I'm sure of.

My folks did,they loved it.

But me,I'm like a few others mentioned,I doubt I'll ever get a chance to retire completely,closest I seem to get are some extended periods of unemployment,LOL.

FWIW

Bret P.