Every time I listen to another right winger raging about unfair taxes my fingers curl as if they're wrapped around a neck. Right wingers love to call liberal democrats whiners. So be it, but consider. The red, republican, Bush voting states are subsidized by those horrible, tax loving, liberals who make, on average, six thousand more dollars a year per capita household income than do red state voters.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the red states total populations add up to a little over 140.5 million. The blue states populations add up to 140.7 million. Red states are returned, on average, $1.12 for every dollar they pay in federal income taxes. The blue states are returned $.87. Put another way, red states pay 44% of the taxes and are returned 52%, while blue states pay 56% of all federal taxes and are returned 44%. Liberal democrats have every right to whine about this unfair distribution of taxes; but they don't. The truth is they don't mind subsidizing their poorer brethren even though their hands are bitten while they're giving such places as Alabama and Mississippi (to name just two) enough money to learn how to read the Ten Suggestions. (Sorry, Commandments)
While it has never been a secret that red states get handouts from blue states, red state senators and representatives aren't going to make blue state's contributions part of their stump speeches on their re-election campaigns. Don't look for "We report, you decide," Fox News to bring it up either. Ted Kennedy, the poster boy of right wing hatred, has never met an education budget he wouldn't vote for. Red states hate property taxes too, even though such taxes historically provide the funding for their schools. Conservative ideology has dramatic tax-cutting going hand in hand with increased government services. Conservatives call this fiscal responsibility. Red states can afford to cut their property taxes because the difference is made up by whining liberals like Ted Kennedy.
If not for the electoral college national candidates wouldn't bother to campaign anywhere but on the coasts. That's where the liberals are, and that's where the money is. Red, welfare states, whose populations hate handouts, should wake up and understand their farm subsidies are paid for by handouts from the blue states. The owners of small, family farms should be willing and anxious to surrender their property to the bank. After all, they don't like taxes, and those crop subsidies they line up for are nothing less than the very same welfare handouts they profess to hate. Those red states with demographically older populations accept handouts for their Social Security and Medicare expenses. But alas, voting records, since Roosevelt's New Deal, show liberals voting consistently for these things. It seems liberals like to see the elderly provided for. They consider government the mechanism by which farmers, fallen on hard times, can keep their farms. Liberals like education. They recognize the future belongs to the nations that have the best educational facilities, teachers and curriculums.
"Hayseeds on subsidies, cussin' woman on welfare." It's astonishing the number of people who embrace the Republican Party at the expense of their own interests. Corporate farms are largely responsible for the failure of family farms. Wouldn't it be interesting if all the whiners who hate taxes were deprived of all the things that taxes pay for. Roads, schools, clean air and water, social security, medicare and medicaid. There's television, telephones and every kind of communication brought to you by satellite that government, through research and development, then the space programs, made possible. Everyone who hates taxes! Stop using the infrastructure that taxes pay for!
The Foundation for State by State Tax Burden Allocation says that in Oklahoma, roughly 1.5 million people paid $6.6 billion on $54 billion of adjusted gross income. In Connecticut, which has the same number of representatives, 1.66 million tax-payers paid $19.1 billion on $107 billion of adjusted gross income. Oklahoma ended up getting a return of $.48 on every dollar. Connecticut lost $.45 on every dollar. The red, client welfare states, supported by those despised liberals, should immediately return the handouts they receive every year. They could practice fiscal conservatism for real! They could be financially and socially responsible! They could have values while the hard working liberals of Connecticut would get to keep their money! I hope no one holds their breath waiting for that to happen.
