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From the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch.

He is the state competition to cut taxes, turning into a virtuous cycle,

plus what to look for as President Biden prepares to give his state of the union address tonight.

Welcome, I'm Kyle Peterson with the Wall Street Journal. We are joined today by my colleagues,

editorial board member Maneu Uguy-Buruwa and columnist Kim Strassel. The turn of the calendar

last month to 2023 means that state lawmakers have been prefiling bills and preparing for their

coming legislative sessions. And today typically includes some tax cut proposals. That's no surprise

this year. Last year, Georgia, Iowa, Mississippi and Arizona joined states that are on some sort of

path to a flat rate income tax. And the journal had an editorial on this trend recently called the

state tax cut movement. The line that stuck out to me says this by year end, nearly half of all

states will have cut their income tax rates within a three year period. On quote, Maneu,

I wonder if you could tell us where to look for this year's policy fights over taxes. And what do

you suppose is driving this overall trend? Absolutely. So to your first question, it seems as if there

are promising proposals to cut taxes in at least six states. And that includes states like Arkansas,

which has a new governor, Sarah Sanders, who campaigned on cutting taxes. Same thing for Nebraska,

has an incoming governor who won in significant part due to his promise to reduce the cost of living

in that state. So those are a couple. Same thing Virginia and West Virginia are also mulling fairly

significant cuts. Both of the governors there have to contend with their legislators. But it seems

as if they're likely to come out of the budgeting season with some success. And so the movement is

continuing. As you said, by year end, it's very likely that about half of states in the US will have

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