Any advice on Per State Taxes

Yes, you have seen a few of these questions from me about state taxes.  I wonder if I am the only guy that has ever tried to chartge state tax to only one state?  Nobody seems to be trying to help me out here.  Here we go again... when I set the taxes for New Jersey to 7% and all other states to 0%, the results are that all states are being charged 7%.  What is the deal?  Anybody??

1. Go to admin area > configuration > tax > tax settings. Ensure that you set up your default tax address (country, state and zip code) which is used by default (until a billing address is entered during checkout). Don't set is to USA/NJ!!!
2. Go to admin area > configuration > tax > tax providers. Ensure that 'Tax By Country & State' is active. Then go to its details and add the following record:
country - USA
state/province - New Jersey
zip code - leave empty
tax class - choose required tax class
percentage - 7%

So this is pretty confusing but this post helped me figure it all out. I guess. So I have set a tax rate for california customers. I then set the default tax information to amercian samoa. That way for most orders it will start with a tax rate of 0. Then when the user sets the billing address it will get calculated. Seems that it would be easier to have a default tax rate instead of default tax location.