https://blog.thomas-bray.com/ Pulling at threads, testing ideas, and making sense of the systems we live in. Writing on psychology, economics, personal development, and mental health. 2026-03-26T21:56:54-04:00 Thomas Bray https://blog.thomas-bray.com/ Jekyll © 2026 Thomas Bray /assets/img/favicons/favicon.ico /assets/img/favicons/favicon-96x96.png 2026-03-17T12:30:00-04:00 2026-03-17T12:30:00-04:00 https://blog.thomas-bray.com/posts/public-finance-florida/ Thomas Bray

Florida’s Growth-Funded Model Florida has no personal income tax and sustains itself on a combination of sales taxes, property taxes, documentary stamp taxes on real estate transactions, and the economic windfall of being one of the country’s premier destinations for both tourism and retiree migration. The model has worked during periods of growth, and it has created fiscal vulnerabilities tha...

2026-03-17T12:25:00-04:00 2026-03-17T12:25:00-04:00 https://blog.thomas-bray.com/posts/public-finance-new-york/ Thomas Bray

New York’s Fiscal Complexity New York is both a state and a city in a way that complicates most fiscal analysis. New York City’s budget is larger than most states. The fiscal fortunes of the state are deeply entangled with the fortunes of the financial industry concentrated in Manhattan. And the political economy of a state that must satisfy both the country’s densest urban core and large rura...

2026-03-17T12:20:00-04:00 2026-03-17T12:20:00-04:00 https://blog.thomas-bray.com/posts/public-finance-california/ Thomas Bray

California’s Singular Scale California’s economy is roughly the size of the United Kingdom’s. Its state government collects more revenue than most countries. Its fiscal decisions ripple through national markets for municipal bonds, healthcare, and education. Analyzing California’s public finance requires first setting aside the usual state-level frameworks—California operates at a scale where ...

2026-03-17T12:15:00-04:00 2026-03-17T12:15:00-04:00 https://blog.thomas-bray.com/posts/public-finance-texas/ Thomas Bray

Texas’s Fiscal Model Texas is the most influential fiscal model in American state government—a large, fast-growing state that has maintained no personal income tax, attracted enormous business investment, and used its model as a competitive wedge against higher-tax states. Whether Texas’s approach represents a sustainable model of governance or a set of deferred costs and distributional choice...

2026-03-17T12:10:00-04:00 2026-03-17T12:10:00-04:00 https://blog.thomas-bray.com/posts/public-finance-ohio/ Thomas Bray

Ohio’s Fiscal Middle Ground Ohio is the Midwest’s great median case—large enough to matter, diverse enough to reflect the full range of regional tensions, and fiscally positioned neither at the crisis end (Illinois) nor the model end (Indiana). Understanding Ohio means understanding a state managing genuine post-industrial transition while navigating intense interstate tax competition and the ...