s plagiarized from someone else for their own platform?
Posted on 11/18/2004 7:36:39 PM PST by Imnotalib
It's bad enough that the red states elected President Bush and sent the blues into a psychic tailspin. bush wins: upper west side put on suicide watch reads a T-shirt in Manhattan.
As students of the federal budget know, the citizens of some states pay more in taxes than they get back from Uncle Sam in grants and benefits. Arnold Schwarzenegger was stunned to learn upon taking office that for every dollar Californians send to Washington, they get back only 77 cents—an imbalance that topped $50 billion in 2003.
But a new analysis in The Great Divide: Retro vs. Metro America, a coffee-table book/political rant by liberal billionaire John Sperling, shows that a fiscal map looks awfully like an electoral map. Between 1991 and 2001, "winner" states got nearly $1 trillion more in federal benefits than they paid in taxes. Alabama won the biggest, raking in $100 billion. Losers California, New York, and Illinois each paid $250 billion or so more than they got back. The huge gaps are driven by higher average incomes in the "donor" states, plus subsidies for farms, oil, mining—"extractive" industries that skew red. There are exceptions (Texas is a loser, Pennsylvania a winner), but the map on this page shows the big picture.
The heist is more impressive considering that the winners have only a third of the U.S. population.
For blue staters, it's one thing to watch red states pick the President and set national policy on everything from Iraq to judges. But to pay them lavishly for the pleasure suggests that blues aren't just losers, they're stupid losers. You can feel blue anger rising. You reds don't like taxes? Okay, stop taking mine! You can have your states' rights too—and we'll start by cutting your allowance!
(Excerpt) Read more at fortune.com ...
In other words, the progressive income tax. How can the rich liberals in those states complain about the progressive income tax that takes away their incomes? Isn't paying high taxes a secular sacrament to them?
Oh! The heartbreak of PEST!
It's true in both red and blue states.
I was gonna say, pull up the red and blue counties in a lot of those blue states, and one will see it just ain't so.
Nearly half the populations of a lot of them voted for Bush as well, no?
This is GREAT! These blue state folks have just become fiscal Republicans! I say we foster these beliefs, nurture them, until we have a TAX CUT FOR THE RICH! Hah hah! Oh, this is too funny.
Fine. We'll make you blue staters pay for your food.
California gets BACK 77% of the money they send to Washington and their ENTIRE contribution to the thousands of other agencies and programs is $50 billion? What is he complaining about? Most states don't get anywhere NEAR 77% of their money back!
In Utah, the feds own over 2/3 of the land. The state can get no income from it; from property taxes for example. The same is true for a lot of red states. In a lot of the blue states, more of the land is in the name of private owners, and people pay taxes on income, don't they?
I suspect the reason might be because if you go back 6 years places like Massholachusetts which was receiving tremendous amounts of federal highway dollars for the Big Dig would be RED instead of BLUE. It might be interesting to see the maps for each year and for the last N years from N = 1 to N = 10 to see if the map was cherry picked from a number of maps that looked materially different.
Okay, What is the point?
People that make less money, should not be able to vote? I think that should be their next message.
Ahem
It is the Blue Big Cities not the Blue States
OK, let's take a look at my state--Nevada. About 90% of Nevada is owned by the federal government. The feds have their way with the state--they have huge military bases here, they have a huge nuclear test site with numerous facilities spread throughout, they're working on a nuclear dump in my backyard, and any land left over is tended to by the BLM bureaucrats. How much does all this cost? Billions, I'm sure, to maintain all these federal facilities.
If the blue states want these federal dollars back then the whiners need to contact their representatives in DC and ask them to start pulling strings to get a naval air base in their backyard. That nuclear dump is sure to pull in major bucks in jobs and "storage fees".
And you can bet that blowing up a nuke in your very own backyard is good for a few million $$ a shot.
So have at it, you whiny blue putzes. You think that your taxes are going towards keeping red welfare queens in donuts, but you're wrong--all that money goes to satisfying your NIMBYism.
s plagiarized from someone else for their own platform?
I suspect with the Republicans in charge, they have been able to get their states more money. Just like the Dems probably did when they were in charge.
No. California, Oregon, and Washington, all Blue states have most of their land owned by the Feds. Check out the National Forests or BLM and see.
Having said that, the argument of Blue vs. Red wealth and taxes is useless. Seattle (Blue) is Microsoft and Boeing. Boeing counts as an independent company. Same as Lockheed/Martin. Same as Grumman. Same as Raytheon. Get the picture.
Useless argument.
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