so which states tax the wealthy the most? oregon and hawaii have the highest rate. 11% on income above $250,000 and $200,000 respectively. california and rhode island have the next highest rates. but some good news for those big earners in rhode island. they ll soon be getting a break. in january, the top rate will drop to just below 6%. the state hopes that will attract more business and create more jobs. which really illustrates the catch-22 that the states are facing. they need to raise taxes to fill those budget gaps, but raise them too much, and you risk having people and jobs move out of the state, tony. that is a catch-22. patricia, good to see you. appreciate it. thank you. good to see you. states governor says the decision on gay marriage is just too important for lawmakers to decide. we are checking your top stories. that s next in the cnn newsroom.
simply it s like declaring war. arizona can t declare war in mexico. that s a federal responsibility. same thing with immigration. that s the theory behind the lawsuit. okay. for more on the implications of this legal showdown, let s go to cnn s casey wian. here s the deal, we have a challenge from the federal government. now the state of arizona gets to respond. what s the state planning to do here? reporter: the state of arizona is clearly going to fight this lawsuit, and they say they re going to continue to go ahead and try to implement this legislation. governor jan brewer sent out a tweet yesterday, immediately after the federal government announced their lawsuit, saying that we will continue to enforce or we will try to enforce the immigration laws, because obama won t do it to paraphrase her tweet. the az post, which is the police officer standard and trainings board in arizona, they re moving ahead with the training video that they have released last week that basically
to block arizona s tough new law, the federal government argues immigration is its jurisdiction. the suit says, a state may not establish its own immigration policy or enforce state laws in a matter that interferes with the federal immigration laws. arizona s governor says the state is stepping in where the feds have failed. we need the federal government to do their job. and if they don t do it, then arizona will. our senior legal analyst says the issue of federal jurisdiction is the main basis for the government s lawsuit. most of what we discussed about the law is, is it profiling, is it discriminatory about against hispanics? that s not the claim. at least by the federal government in this litigation. what they are saying is that under the constitution, this area of law, immigration, is reserved for the federal government. and states have no right to pass laws because that is they
they inherently quantified the state s inherent authority. they continue to demystify the point. we enforce federal law in many, many areas every single day. here s what s embarrassing. we have policies in direct violation of the law. they are not going to sue us for not doing the job but sue arizona for protecting our citizens. it s outrageous and insulting. isabelle, weigh in here. you have been patient. this is not about protecting anybody from arizona. in fact, if mr. pierce were responsible, he would, in fact, want to protect and protect our values in this country. clearly, this is a supremacy issue. it s preposterous that he argue that the federal government doesn t have the exclusive jurisdiction on this very complicated area of law. certainly arizona cannot simply
equipment and things like that are made in arizona they discovered we need equipment to enforce the laws. it has not worked. i think you are going to see a lot of cities backtrack considerably. and they should. i don t have a problem, if individual americans have a problem with arizona did i don t have a problem with saying i m not going to buy in that state. i have an objection to city governments by the way california greta: we just had a congresswoman here from the state of arizona who said two federal government vents that were scheduled for arizona which she believes was cancelled as a part of boycotting arizona. the president needs to step up about this. i realize he s going to speak thursday about immigration. the idea that arizona has a target on is back. and people aren t taking responsible.