Posted on 10/31/2003 10:26:19 AM PST by pabianice
In reading other posts here on FR and in spending most of the day just reading (I'm a reporter), I am again struck how the US has split into two countries: "red" Bush America and "blue" Gore America. That's nit news. What's most compelling is how Bush America is increasingly having to prop-up the utterly failed Great Society/Gore America, and for just how much longer such a situation can exist.
Item: teacher disciplined for telling Mexican kids in her US class to stop disrupting the class (she's a "racist" for so doing). The other kids in the class continue to get no education and the Liberals think that's just fine -- for other kids. The LIberals opt out of the system by sending THIER kids to private schools.
Item: A conservative estimate puts as much as 35% of the American economy underground. Taxpayers are fed-up with having 50% or more of of their hard-earned pay taxed by the feds, the state, Medicare, Medicaid, etc. So peopledo the natural thing: opt out of the system by going cash-only, off the books.
Item: the blue states lead in victim disarmament, where the law-abiding are denied the constitutional right to self-defense while the Liberals turn a blind eye at violence from career criminals ("poor victims of a racist system"). Liberals make sure they live in guarded, gated communities, and never have to set foot in any scruffy areas as they drive their SUVs from gated home to gated office building. Others who can, opt out by leaving such areas for places where they can carry concealed if they wish and where criminals know they are likely to be shot.
Item: International embarrassments like Ted Kennedy give long, boozy speeches about the evils of President Bush while his devotees urinate themselves in the glow of their self-righteousness. Others simply ignore such crap and tune-into talk radio.
Item: "Blue" America is financially bankrupt, and California is a glaring example. "Blue" America has degenerated into a coven of grasping, mentally diminished, selfish, thuggish special interest groups who have become increasingly violent in fighting over what is left of the Big City Democratic machines that have run things for the past 150 years. The "blue" islands on the 2000 map can best be described as cancers on the national MRI -- blighted areas of malignant, imploding selfishness that are trying to spread across the entire national body. And the "red" nation has to keep paying for it.
I have to wonder how much longer this will be the case. The defacto separation of "red" and "blue" has already occurred, and is fat too profound to be fixed by any social "bussing." At what point does the whole scheme collapse? And how is this going to be expressed and dealt with in the coming 2004 elections?
Could be because those areas (esp. on a county-by-county basis) tend to be more densely populated, i.e. cities and other heavily developed areas, than the areas that voted for GWB in 2000. More people=more money in a raw sense. Why do those urban areas tend to be more liberal? Simply put, they're denser, and rely more on government regulations & services.
It makes the picture slightly more complex than you presented above.
< sarcasm > Fool! You think this isn't necessarily a black-and-white issue? You must be a Communist or DU disruptor or something!< /sarcasm>
Snidely
True enough. Other subsidies have benefits as well - roads subsidies benefit anyone who travels; educational subsidies benefit...somebody, I'm sure; Medicare and Medicaid benefit the health-care industry and those who are able to receive medical attention as a result; and tax credits (effectively subsidies) benefit small business owners, parents, and anyone who gets a college education, to name a few.
It's all really a matter of perspective, innit? Or is it?
Snidely
Even a lot of "foreign aid" is spent here in the USA--much of it comes with a proviso that it is to be used for goods and services produced here.
That's what I have been saying for a long time. Commies are red bump!
I have long wished we could split America in two-- one nation of "Just let me aloners" and the other of "I want the government to be my Mom & Daddy..."
Unfortunately, the latter require the money and labor of the former, so it would never stand for long.
Do the research yourself or pay me a consulting fee to do it for you. There is only so much research I'll do for free.
Yes, you can argue that dollars are not equal but bear in mind that New Jersey does have military facilities as well (Fort Monmouth, Earl, Picatinny, McGuire, as well as federal employees in various agencies). And a heck of a lot of welfare gets sent into the "red" states. I know this is counter-intuitive for many Freepers but it really isn't difficult to understand. It's all about income.
If you look at average Median incomes (for example, here), you'll see an average income in Kentucky of $39,300 but $63,800 in New Jersey. New Jersey has about 8.6 million people while Kentucky has only about 4 million. Now, consider that the tax brackets for Federal income tax are not indexed for the cost of living. That means that fewer of those 4 million Kentuckians are even paying taxes. They are paying less in taxes. And there are less of them paying it. This is so obvious for conservatives when it comes to explaining why the poor didn't get a tax cut.
Poor people pay less in taxes. The people in the rural South, rural Midwest, and rural West are poorer than the people on the coast and in the cities. There are fewer of them in the same physical area. It is more expensive to do things like build roads, sewers, or electrical and phone lines and it takes longer to visit each person because each person is father apart (this is where the rural "Baby Bell" USWest got screwwed). Put it all together. This isn't that difficult to see once you stop assuming that rural living is cheap. Ask USWest/Qwest how cheap it is running a rural utility compared to an urban utility.
Oh, I'm very troubled by the by the debt being incurred by the US Government and all the State Governments and local municipalities. In my mind the ONLY programs that should be funded by debt are those for which the benefits accrue over a period of time (i.e., roads, dams, buildings). You should never go into debt to meet recurring expenditures.
I personally only use debt financing on things that for which I will derive a benefit on over time (home, second house, car). I never use debt to finance my recurring expenditures (groceries, electricity, Santa Claus). If only the Government would manage their money the same way.
They are PDFs. I couldn't find an HTML version quickly, though you can Google search the links and probably see an HTML version that way.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.