The Great Divide?

[throwingstardna]

RED STATES:

• The South, the Great Plains, the Mountain West and Appalachia
  
• 35% of the population, 50 Senators
  
• Subsidized extraction industries-agriculture, oil, gas, coal and forestry-and majority of military installations
  
• Pays 29% of federal taxes
  
• From 1991 to 2001, received $800 billion more in goods, services and cash from Washington than it paid

Comments

[stumpsforhands]

I'm totally, blue, but I didn't like this when I saw it in The Nation (Harper's?). Can I poke at it a little?

#2 Why are they comparing the population percentage with the number of representative senators? That's not outrageous, because Congress is structured to represent population size. Didn't they sort of deal with this in the 18th century? Didn't we all learn this in third grade?

#4 What? The blue states pay how much more in taxes? That's outrag--oh, wait, didn't you just contrast the difference in population size like two seconds ago? And aren't these percentages roughly equal to those? Yeah.

#5 From 1991 to 2001, received $800 billion more in goods, srvices and cash from Washington than it paid in taxes
Um, farmers.

#6 Ach. I'm dismayed to learn that that many people on either side believe in the Bible at all, let alone that it is the literal word of god. *shakes head*

#7 Nobel Laureates in science and economics: 23
Hrm. Well, y'know. Farmers.

[girlvinyl]

Ha ha, YEA!

[calisrue]

thanks for pointing out alot of the things this comparison kinda ignores, especially population = tax base

[throwingstardna]

Yeah, except that today, "farmers" actually means enormous agribusiness corporations, not salt-of-the-earth small farmers hewing out a living from the soil. This is a good article, from Forbes, to give you an idea of what I'm talking about:

Milking The Farm ProgramWhat do Kenneth Lay, Robert "Ted" Turner, Sam Donaldson and David Rockefeller have in common? Each has collected thousands of dollars a year in federal farm subsidies, compliments of U.S. taxpayers.

When Congress passed the latest farm bill in 2002-at a whopping price tag of $180 billion-the stated goal was to help struggling family farmers. But the reality, finds a new study from the Heritage Foundation, is something else.

"Most farm subsidies are distributed to large farms, agribusinesses, politicians and celebrity 'hobby farmers'," Heritage says. "Farm subsidies," the group adds, "have evolved from a safety net for poor farmers to America's largest corporate welfare program."
Read the rest ...

[s0ur_times]

*gets flustered*

I caught the tail end of a news segment on an interview with bush and I must see it! From what I saw, it looked like the interviewer got all sorts of feisty and got on W's case on his bringing religion into the office with him. Everyone seems to be walking on egg shells about the issue, so I'd really like to see what was said. That's the only part I caught before they went onto a commercial other than bush looking like he suddenly had something shoved up his ass. it was priceless. so, yeah, I was hoping that maybe possibly you might know what that's from?

[s0ur_times]

oh, and this is hilareous (found it while searching for the mystery interview.

[njvinnie]

Why do you hate America and god-fearing Americans? :P~

[the_bungalow]

I'd suggest nuking them in the process, but I think the radiation would have more of an impact on us than them. Tricky inbreds.

[dancingdrew]

WOW THAT WAS FUNNY!!!! I LIKE JOKES ABOUT NUKING PEOPLE!!!!

[the_bungalow]

It wasn't so much a joke as a light-hearted suggestion. But continue drawing attention to yourself if so desired.

[ctresca]

Instead of thinly masked classism and blame, I think it's better to admit that the left has lost the rural working class. We should be working on getting them back, and not on alienating them further.

I recommend the book What's the Matter with Kansas, by Thomas Frank as a good starting point.

[throwingstardna]

http://www.livejournal.com/users/throwingstardna/573108.html

And read my comment below.

[ctresca]

I see your point below. I'm just worried that people reading this might throw this back in the faces of republicans, especially poor people who consider themselves republicans, and it'll come off in a really classist way. Anybody who uses this as an arguing point should be really careful about how they approach it, otherwise your point will be easily refuted as being "elitist" (because republicans refuse to use the 'c' word).

[throwingstardna]

I agree. It's easy to misinterpret the intent.