Dwight Howard $8,000,000; Jerry Brown $0

Dan Mitchell from Townhall.com has the following article about an athletes decision, based on taxes.  Now, I normally don't write about sports, but this article explains one of the possible, and most likely probable reason why Dwight Howard went to the Houston Rockets, instead of staying with the Lakers.

That looks about even when you look at annual pay, with the Lakers offering $23.4 million per year and the Rockets offering $22 million per year, but there’s another very important factor.

…this picture looks a lot different once the tax man cometh: “Howard would pay nearly $12 million in California tax over the four years if he signs with the Lakers, but only $600,000 in state tax should he sign with Houston. This means that a four-year deal with Houston would actually yield an additional $8 million in after-tax income.” California has the highest top rate for personal income in the nation, while Texas has no state income tax.

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The bigger point, though, is that there are tens of thousands of other high-paid people who can leave the state and there’s no automatic replacement. And many of them already have escaped.