The New Welfare, Republican-Style

[Qenan]

From http://www.makethemaccountable.com/misc/Maps.htm
http://www.makethemaccountable.com/misc/images/USMapGiversAndTakers.JPG

Pretty high correlation between the net takers of tax revenue and the states that supported Bush, mmm?

[shift6]

Perhaps because people in the "blue" states tend to be more liberal in their personal spending philosophies, so they are willing to pay more to federal coffers come tax time, thus tilting their states into the green.

[Jason McCullough]

I wasn't aware income taxes were voluntary.....

[Brad Grenz]

Seems pretty disengenuous to be bitching about the progressive tax system those states support.

[Silverlight]

I'd like to see a version of such a map after accounting for the tendency to place NIMBY-style global services like military training bases and research labs in red states.

[Brad Grenz]

That's a good point. Here in Salem, the state capital we have like 7 prisons. Mostly because whenever the state tries to build one in another community they throw a hissy fit. Fucking babies...

[Jason McCullough]

I'd like to see a version of such a map after accounting for the tendency to place NIMBY-style global services like military training bases and research labs in red states.

Wha? Cities fight over the right to build prisons and military bases - they love 'em.

[Silverlight]

I'd like to see a version of such a map after accounting for the tendency to place NIMBY-style global services like military training bases and research labs in red states.

Wha? Cities fight over the right to build prisons and military bases - they love 'em.
I'll see your prisons and raise you some nuclear waste dumps! Oh, wait, those only go in Nevada.

Speaking seriously, I can't remember the last time I heard of a major military base that wasn't either out in the desert, in the middle of nowhere, or in a Southern state. City land is a little too expensive to buy a thousand acres of it for a tank-training range.

Like I said, it would be interesting to take out all money, paid in taxes, and then spent on what are effectively global services, and see what the map looked like then. That would give us a much truer sense of who's getting what and why.

[Jason McCullough]

I think you're misinformed.

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/List-of-United-States-military-bases

California, for example, has 10% of the Air Force, 3% of the Army, 23% of the Marines, and 20% of the Navy. Places like Pennsylvania don't have many bases for obvious reasons - landlocked, flying day count is low, lack of cheap land, etc.

[Silverlight]

I think you're misinformed.

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/List-of-United-States-military-bases

California, for example, has 10% of the Air Force, 3% of the Army, 23% of the Marines, and 20% of the Navy. Places like Pennsylvania don't have many bases for obvious reasons - landlocked, flying day count is low, lack of cheap land, etc.
I decided to do a full count based on this year's electoral college.

Air Force - 55 Red, 16 Blue
Army - 40 Red, 20 Blue
Marines - 9 Red, 5 Blue
Navy - 28 Red, 28 Blue

Totals - 132 Red, 69 Blue

California is a disingenuously-chosen exception to the general rule (as would be Maryland and DC) because California is a coastline attached to a few hundred miles deep of open space. The Navy is an obvious exception to the general rule, since the coastlines are split roughly 50/50 between states, and navies do their exercises on the open water.

Since I wasn't thinking of the Navy at all, I find it difficult to take seriously the idea that I'm misinformed. I'd say that the source you cited splendidly proved my point.

[russellmz00]

I think you're misinformed.

http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/List-of-United-States-military-bases

California, for example, has 10% of the Air Force, 3% of the Army, 23% of the Marines, and 20% of the Navy. Places like Pennsylvania don't have many bases for obvious reasons - landlocked, flying day count is low, lack of cheap land, etc.


i mentioned it before but the more amusing stats are divorce rates: mass has the lowest rate in the nation. the red states have a higher average rate.

[shift6]

I wasn't aware income taxes were voluntary.....
Creative accounting is. And if you, the payer, are more liberal in thought and willing to give more to "do your part", you won't bother with the conniving CPA to save you a few Gs.

[Jason McCullough]

Coastlines are not evenly split between the states; the Blue states have like 2/3rds of them.

I wasn't data mining, I just picked CA because it's the most Democratic.

Anyway, what's your point here? That defense spending - which is only 19% of the federal budget - is actually what's driving this? "Jersey pays 150% of the median tax share" + "most of the retirement benefits go to the South" seems better.

Shift, that's absurd. There is not "widespread tax avoidance in the red states only."

[Jason McCullough]

Ah, here we go. I actually agree with Megan McArdle's statistical analysis on something:

http://www.janegalt.net/blog/archives/004383.html

In other words, the variance seems to be explained almost entirely by two things that blue staters are heavily in favor of (presumably): progressive taxation, and hog-wild entitlement spending.