OK conservatives. Crank up the spin machine!

[FromTexas]

Wonderful. You just showed that your notion of population is NOT the reason for the difference. Good job!

The simple matter is that these states take more than they give. Can you at least give some explanation of what would happen if suddenly the funding was cut. All I hear are things like "They will be fine". If they would be fine, then why not cut it back now and focus on getting the debt back in order?

Population was the reason for the main cite in the article. If you read my initial post it broke down the top ten and bottom ten. That was the crux of my argument. Did you not read? It was also an argument of population density, not just population. Your inability to follow simple logic is not my problem.

 

[2ndAmendment]

Wonderful. You just showed that your notion of population is NOT the reason for the difference. Good job!

The simple matter is that these states take more than they give. Can you at least give some explanation of what would happen if suddenly the funding was cut. All I hear are things like "They will be fine". If they would be fine, then why not cut it back now and focus on getting the debt back in order?

:ding:
Military funding, federal installations, and the like goes into the federal dollar numbers. If the blue states were to secede, the government would not go away. We would get rid of many welfare programs because we would not have to support all the folks with their hands out in the cities. There would still be a central government or one form or another. I would think that without all the "liberal" (read government control) influence from people like Kennedy, Clinton, and Kerry the central government would be far closer to what we stated with and states rights and citizen rights would come back to the forefront. You Democrats are so stuck on yourselves that you don't think anyone could possible survive without you; you are so wrong.

 

[2ndAmendment]

Facts? I'm still waiting for the answer to the question of if the red states' federal funding was reduced to make them more responsible for their own budgets, what would happen? Money has to come from somewhere. Either through bringing it in, or reducing spending.

Left to their own without federal interference the red states would do away with most of the entitlement programs since most of the "give me" people live in the urban areas. That would cut spending drastically.

 

[FromTexas]

How cute! You first say there is no relation between this argument and welfare spending, then you go right into the welfare argument as another way federal spending is messed up. So which is it, Sherlock?

As far as welfare spending, it is quite obvious by my stance in this thread concerning federal spending that you are preaching to the choir.

No, I say you can not accuse the states of not cutting it on their own. In fact, I actually said, but if YOU want to talk welfare (you know, as in change in topic). I show you why. I show you that as far as welfare spending, of interest to the individuals receiving it in their state and not a product that everyone enjoys nationally (therefore, only to those in the states), that the BLUE states are the ones who eat that stuff up far more per capita than the red. If it was just welfare spending considered, the red states are SELF-SUFFICIENT. As far as maintaining programs that everyone in the nation uses, the red states are not self-sufficient... which they shouldn't be. Unless you think places like Alabama should be paying the blue states share of national defense.

Anything that is not an entitlement (something given to individuals in those states and not shared as a national benefit for all), would be a national benefit (military, space technology, agriculture, etc...).

So follow this closely. The extra money going to red states can not be attributed to welfare based on what I showed you. That would make them hipocrites if it was. That would be the argument that was being promoted... one of hipocracy. So, the agrument has been defeated since the extra money going to red states per tax dollar was not based in entitlements as shown above. It would have to fall into other categories!

Can you not see how it matters that red states get more spent on them for things like national defense? Maybe because there are way more military installations in red states? Are you saying that only the state that gets all that military money spent on them enjoys the benefit of national defense and it is not shared?

You can dance around it all you want. I have shown you how welfare is not an attribute you can pin on the red states as being supported. I have shown you that what the red states are being funded for by the blue states are benefits the blue states enjoy. Therefore, the blue states are only paying their fair share.

You want to keep breaking it down further? I gave you cost categories earlier and I showed you how the money going there wasn't entitlement based (i.e. just for the benefit of the individuals of the state).

I also have showed you that for basic programs population density is a major factor since you have to have federal roads and highways in the most sparsely population dense states as well as the very population dense states (that is a major factor in those top and bottom ten as originally argued).

So, please explain to me the hipocricy again. It is not there. Please explain how states, like Florida, that have many military, space technology, and other federal installations aren't sharing a national benefit for the money they receive from the blue states.

I am waiting. Unless, once again you are going to digress into another tangent because you only see a dollar and not what a dollar does.

 

[SmallTown]

from the report...

"One factor affecting rankings is that federal spending on defense and other procurement dollars are often funneled to the states of powerful members of congress. Also, state governments can grab more federal grant money by manipulating their spending to comply with federal regulations.

Another factor is demography. States with more residents on Social Security, Medicare and other federal entitlements tend to rank high. Similarly, high spending levels in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia are explained by the predominance of federal employees.

Finally, states with higher incomes per capita—such as Connecticut—pay higher federal taxes per capita thanks to the income tax's progressive structure, which increases federal taxes per dollar of federal spending received in return. "

I think some of you are just upset that you have bought into the liberal philosophy of tax and spend without even knowing it.

 

[Larry Gude]

Vrai...

...what this is about is ST and MG see Republicans as bigger hypocrites than Democrats and their argument about the map is a 'gotcha' as far as they are concerned.

Me, Tex, 2a and whomever else are trying to point out that context matters. You can make a an unsupported statistic say anything. This is falling on deaf ears.

Doesn't matter to them if the numbers on the map held true when Democrats held the House, which is where all spending bills start. It doesn't matter if a blue dollar value adds in a blue state and a red dollar is short term in a red one.

It doesn't matter that, obviously, Democrats in the House and Senate and in the White House pushed for or signed for or voted for actions over lo these many years that led to the the blessed map.

Doesn't matter that the ENTIRE picture changes if you look at the map in terms of counties. Or population. Or gross dollars to. Or gross dollars from.

Doesn't matter in terms of the simple math of population.

Nope. The ONLY thing that matters is that Republicans take more than they give to the federal government,clear as a bell and a map proves it and, therefore, Republicans are for paying people to do nothing at the expense of working folks and Republicans, not Democrats, live the creed; from each by his means to each by his needs...as defined by us.

Yes indeed folks, contrary to what you've been lied to about, LBJ and the Great Society was purely a Republican run operation and it's legacy of dependancy is truely the American way. The New Deal? FDR? Republicans.

John Wayne would be proud.

You know what? When Democrats controlled plantations in 1859 they said the same thing, 'those guys are taking more than their fare share! We should secede!'.

Now, they control the modern plantations, cities, and are saying the SAME thing.

How interesting.

 

[Ken King]

Perusing the 2003 Consolidated Federal Funding Report, 100 some odd pages of reading on exactly where all the money goes, one discovers that of the 21 blue areas (20 states and DC), identified in the link provided, 12 of them receive above the national average for per capita federal spending. Seems like it pretty much balances out in the wash.

 

[Larry Gude]

No Ken! NO!

NO MORE FACTS!!!!

Republican=hyporcites, stink bombs, BAD!!!

Democrats= Mothers milk, compassion, pay for Larry's golf.

Got it?

 

[Ken King]

NO MORE FACTS!!!!

Republican=hyporcites, stink bombs, BAD!!!

Democrats= Mothers milk, compassion, pay for Larry's golf.

Got it?

Any clue as to what the DC per capita rate of federal expinditure is?

 

[SmallTown]

...what this is about is ST and MG see Republicans as bigger hypocrites than Democrats and their argument about the map is a 'gotcha' as far as they are concerned.

Nope. Not hypocritical at all. Simply stating that apparantly the country as a whole follows the liberal version of economics. I have said I don't personally like the way it is spread out, so no one can really call me a democrat for not supporting it.

Me, Tex, 2a and whomever else are trying to point out that context matters. You can make a an unsupported statistic say anything. This is falling on deaf ears.

Yes, context does not matter. Unfortunately, the reasons given don't match the reasons the report gives. Some, but not all.

Doesn't matter to them if the numbers on the map held true when Democrats held the House, which is where all spending bills start. It doesn't matter if a blue dollar value adds in a blue state and a red dollar is short term in a red one.

Duh. I have been saying all along this is a liberal model. Who knows when it started, but this is a very good reason why it lasted through the democratic control. And now with republicans in office, are they going to up and say "You give us too much money, please cut back". Please.

therefore, Republicans are for paying people to do nothing at the expense of working folks and Republicans, not Democrats, live the creed; from each by his means to each by his needs...as defined by us.

Nothing about paying people to do nothing. That what would be fraud. We aren't talking about fraud.

 

[Larry Gude]

I have the time to waste...

apparantly the country as a whole follows the liberal version of economics.

The 'liberal' version is progressive tax rates. W is making it less progressive.

Yes, context does not matter.

I applaud you saying so.

I have been saying all along this is a liberal model

You can call it what you want. That doesn't make it a 'liberal model'.

Would it look like it does if no one but liberal Democrats ran government for 50 years?

Answer: Yes.

Would it look like it does if Conservatives ran government for 50 years?

Yes. Because of the underlying facts. Which you say don't matter, so, there it is.

Nothing about paying people to do nothing. That what would be fraud.

Sigh. Liberal social policy, largely ended by Bill Clinton signing welfare reform, was about paying people rather generous unemployment benefits. Of course this doesn't happen in blue states or cities, only on government subsidized moonshine ranches. In red states.

 

[FromTexas]

Of course the red states are more rewarded with defense contracts! Thats where the people come from who support defense! Duh!

And, of course, those more powerful members of congress get more stuff placed in their states.

None of that has anything to do with the liberalness of the economics involved. Pork barrel politics happens on all sides.

However, what does matter is that those items that get the extra money for red states are for NATIONAL benefits, and not just state benefits. They are military installations, etc... that would have been built anyway. However, good politicians get those things built in their states so there are extra benefits to their economies.

On the flip side, you have those blue states just milking the entitlement system and they have been shown here to eat the majority of the entitlement dollars. California and New York just gobble up those dollars.

So, delude yourself all you want. Again and again you have been shown the truth and just continue to deny it.

In the end, every politician should be looking out for their constituents. In red states, that means getting contracts, federal research dollars, and federal installations built there (more than it means getting welfare dollars). In the blue states, it means getting more welfare dollars. There is nothing wrong with looking out for your constitutents. It is what you were voted in to do. But dont try to paint tax and spend on red states because they look out for their citizens while providing for the greater good of the country instead of looking out for their citizens and helping maintain a culture of dependency that needs the majority of all increased spending.

 

[FromTexas]

BTW- where is the tax part to the tax and spend?

 

[Penn]

http://www.washtimes.com/national/pruden.htm

"Oh, dear. This may be considerably more serious than we thought.

Four years ago 36 days of uncertainty in Florida transformed the Gore-Lieberman team into the Sore-Loserman ticket, but the anger if not the rancor soon subsided. Alec Baldwin threatened to move to France but never did and eventually denied ever promising to leave. He may still be hanging about an airport somewhere in Southern California looking to hitch a ride to the Ivory Coast, but most of the losers, as grown-ups will, regrouped and reorganized to fight another day. "

 

[MGKrebs]

Well, there's a forest here somewhere, but I can't find it

...as you've presented the ever so interesting facts, care to make a point to give them meaning?

'Stephane' basically pointed out the first context necessary to even begin to draw any conclusions; population.

So, to the map we should add 1, total population per state, 2, total dollars paid to the Treasury per state and 3, total dollars returned per state.

One of the largest single Federal programs in recent memory was 'the big dig' in Boston, not yet finished and already costing over $14 billion mostly federal dollars, yet its cost is pared down as a per person or per dollar average simply because it is divided by Massachusetts 6.5 million souls.

Trent Lott got a $300 million aircraft carrier contract for Mississippis 2.8 million folks.

The new highway in Boston is permanent and value adds for Boston pretty much forever. A new project planned for Manhatten is to cost a few billion but is expected to bring as much as $60 billion in increased property values.

The aircraft carrier is over when it's finished. They get to keep an empty ship yard.

I'd love to also see that map on a county by county basis. St. Mary's probably gets way more return on a federal dollar by dollar basis but no one is going to confuse what Baltimore gets total and what they can do with it vs. what Leonardtown gets.

So, context, context, context.

When you're ready to move to Pascagoola because the tax return is so much more fair there, per dollar, by all means, let me know.

because all of these trees are in the way!

Are you saying that there is no trend here? That the numbers look the way they do because of exceptions? If it weren't for a battleship here, a tunnel there, the map would look different?

And I'm not following you on Steve claiming population as some sort of significant factor.

 

[MGKrebs]

I got your simple logic right here.

Its nice to look at data that portrays a picture you would like to see without looking at the meat. You were presented some very solid reasons why the situations would exist. In fact, the very link you took the information from had other pages explaining discrepanices due to similar issues (per capita income, type of industry for income, military personnel per capita, federal employees per capita, etc... ).

Take a step back and look at the trend. You don't really mean to say that it's just coincidence that virtually ALL of the red political states are also red fiscal states. Do you? If you want to get into a list of exceptions for each state, feel free. I prefer to try to see if there is a bigger picture there that perhaps we can learn something from.

And just so it's clear, my goal is to show evidence that conservatives are selfish. And I can get something else out of the way pre-emptively.

I am selfish too.

My selfishness derives from my belief that a stronger community is good for me. Me contributing to the community makes it better. My argument is that conservatives (generally) think that helping others weakens them. That the best way to run a community is for everyone to just fend for themselves. And I think that map is evidence of that. And the fact that someone pointed out that the map hasn't changed in decades reinforces the point. People who live in states that receive more from the community than they contribute tend to vote Republican. I believe that is a fact. Rationalize it all you want, it will still be there.

We also know that conservatives (often identified as Republicans) claim the mantle of fiscal responsibility and are usually anti-welfare and pro-smaller government. That is what Republicans vote for. What are we to think?

Perhaps the people in those states are deluded, and think that it is somebody else that is getting the welfare, and therefore it is somebody else's services that will get cut when more tax cuts come rolling along. Selfish.

Or perhaps they know exactly what they are doing and don't really care what happens elsewhere, as long as their own congressman brings home the pork. Selfish.

 

[MGKrebs]

Yeah but, why do they vote Repub?

Smalltown, you need to be hit with the cluebat, too, in this thread. Just an FYI.

Say it slowly with me, "Poopppuuullllatttiion ddeeennnnssiityy and innddduuusttrry".

If you have ten people... 7 live in one territory and 3 live in another. They all pay $10 in taxes. To run the same programs in each territory, more of the tax money will be returned to the territory with 3 people. There is a basic cost for providing the service and a small increase above that for each person served. It is cheaper per person to serve 1,000 than to serve 100.

This is simple government 101. We aren't talking rocket science here.

In addition, if one territory provides 70% of the produce and the other territory provides 80% of the industrial technology and services, the industrial tech and services are paid higher and the agriculture makes less. They both are hard workers. However, there is higher tax income over the base needed for just providing the government services in the higher income state.

It can't get much simpler than that.

Whatever the reason that they are red, the fact seems to be that they vote primarily Repub. If they were aware of the role the government was playing in supporting their lives, why would they vote like that? Shouldn't they be Dems?

 

[2ndAmendment]

because all of these trees are in the way!

Are you saying that there is no trend here? That the numbers look the way they do because of exceptions? If it weren't for a battleship here, a tunnel there, the map would look different?

And I'm not following you on Steve claiming population as some sort of significant factor.

If you got your head out of your derriere (French so you liberals can understand it), you might be able to understand. I would think it must be hard to read and hear with your head in there.

 

[MGKrebs]

Fact check.

Wrong. It has nothing to do with self-sufficiency. For instance, Alabama has a number of major government installations in a small population. Therefore, they receive a large part of the public dole because federal employees (military and NASA for instance) take up a greater proprotion of the population (among the other issues of population density, etc..). The benefit received from the dollars in those states, national defense and space technology) are not benefits to the state but to the country. Therefore, you can not identify that as a state issue. Those number do count money spent on federal employees, buildings, land, etc... Again, this will have a greater effect on lower population states because large cost items of the federal government are averaged into a state with less population (and thus, dollars).

That is some serious BS. You've been doing this awhile?
Now we are saying that red states are exempt from this analysis because their contribution to the community is not measures easily by some arbitrary definition that you invented? That's a bluff, and I'm calling you on it.

Besides, if you are going to claim this info, you're gonna have to go find some statistics about the proportion of federal employees to state populations or something, to back it up. Otherwise, you are just making stuff up. But finding those statistics is a waste of time anyway. You will never be able to define the parameters any better than that map shows.

How about medicaid spending per capita?
http://www.ppinys.org/jtf99/table41.htm
Whoa! Is that NY at number one!?! Rhode Island, Maine, Mass, and Conneticut also in the top 6? Only one red state in the top 6?

How about state and local welfare spending per capita?
http://www.ppinys.org/jtf99/table42.htm
Wow! Look at all those blue states in the top 10 of that list!!!

Hint! Those high in medicaid, state, and local welfare spending will be the highest overall in federal welfare spending across the board since state/local spending on welfare gets most its money from the fed.

I am not sure what point you are trying to make, but in the end, the same result is still there. Those states may pay more than red states for all of those services, but guess what, they collect enough taxes to cover it, AND send some to Idaho too.

 

[FromTexas]

That is some serious BS. You've been doing this awhile?
Now we are saying that red states are exempt from this analysis because their contribution to the community is not measures easily by some arbitrary definition that you invented? That's a bluff, and I'm calling you on it.
.

http://www.ncbase.com/papers/DoD-Senate.pdf

http://www.news-star.com/stories/100804/gov_12.shtml

http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/taubmancenter/publications/fisc/fy1999/FY1999StateProfiles.pdf

There is a list of stats and other information to prove my point. So much for calling my bluff. One set is from Harvard. Read it and get back to me with your apology for calling my arguments B.S. The only fault in my argument is arguing pieces without full explanation because to me I see the big picture and forget to sometimes explain and detail the minutia that you and ST can't seem to wrap your meager understanding around.