…well more stable. New York State and New York City are partly in such dire straits because many of the Master of the Universe who used to work on “Wall Street” don’t anymore. The ones that are left are making less. When the economy turns down, sales tax revenues plummet but payroll and income taxes go down too.

Inflation and rising costs will effectively lower the tax year after year.

Long term wages tend to follow inflation. It’s levied as a percentage of income, not a flat tax on each employee.

but a lot of people, especially a lot of rich people, don’t earn their money from pay roll taxes.

Almost no one earns their income from payroll taxes. Even tax collectors don’t get a slice of revenue, just a salary. Rich people tend tend to make their living by mean other than work, since they aren’t on a payroll they don’t pay payroll taxes….