I do assume that. I assume that most red states except North Dakota and Texas have older than average populations since few young people move there for work. This is an especially good assumption when comparing California with its large immigrant population to Mississippi which is not exactly known for its swingingness.
However, Social Security money does help state budgets, since recipients will spend it all, and much of that will get taxed and thus added to the state budget, and even the stuff that isn’t taxed will get respent and eventually taxed.
In fact, other than direct payments to the states which rarely happens, I’m struggling to think of a payment disparity that would help the state budget more than a Social Security disparity. Payments to government contractors and Medicare will partly be company profit which can eventually move off-state. Similarly for military employees who will save some of it for retirement or to spend it in another state.
Okay, I may have thought of an exception: construction funds. It is an investment in the state which should help the economy of the state. However, I don’t know the per capita numbers for this.
The conservative thought process seems to be something like this:
1: By all measures, blue states are doing better than red states economically.
2: But there are many uncontrolled variables, and correlation does not equal causation.
3: Therefore, there is no proof that liberal economic policies are better than conservative economic policies.
4: Therefore, since there is no proof that liberal economic policies are better, they’re not better.
5: Since liberal economic policies are not better, it follows therefore that conservative policies are better.
The business elite and conservative communities have been predicting imminent decline and collapse of the European nanny states for decades. The similar predictions towards California ever since it went solid blue strike me as similar in motivation.
Ok, are the reds or the blues paying more taxes within the so-called blue and red states? I have a hard time believing that the vast amount of poor that vote dem in California pay the majority of taxes in California. And who receives the most unearned “entitlements” red or blues in the so-called red and blue states?
Now this is actually a problem. Small federal government wasn’t suppose to mean no government or a non-financed government. In some ways conservatism has gone a bit too far with the the rhetoric and practice of constraints.
Yeah, California is so crowded that no one lives there any more. Thanks, Yogi!
California is not getting its population growth from Kansas, but from lots of highly educated immigrants and others from around the country looking for great jobs. My old company had a list of colleges we recruited from - IIRC none were in Kansas.
There is good reason to go the other way. I could probably buy half a Kansas town with the equity I have. My daughter rented a 3,000 sq ft house in a ritzy suburb of Indianapolis for less than she paid for a tiny loft in LA. Most people in Kansas probably couldn’t afford an apartment in Silicon Valley.
Silicon Valley, where the average salary is like $100K and where we pay plenty of taxes is very liberal. The Congressional race is between two Democrats.
I think a more meaningful comparison would be CA vs TX, if you want to just look at 2 states. Both large (in area and population), coastal, rich in natural resources, mild climates. One reliably liberal, one reliably conservative.
Might it be that strong economies are possible under liberal or conservative governments? Must it be either/or? It shouldn’t be difficult to imagine that there are ways for liberal policies to screw up an economy and for conservative policies to do the same. Looking at only two states (one liberal and one conservative) isn’t very convincing.
CA does put a lie to the idea that raising taxes on the rich* will cause them to flee. A few might, but most don’t. Anecdotally, I know a few very wealthy “Californians” who technically reside in no-income tax states, but who reside here 6 months - 1 day out of every year. Once you’re at a certain wealth level, it’s not too difficult to maintain two residences, and sometimes it can even work out well for recreation. But that’s still pretty rare, AFAICT.
*Although it’s probably easy enough to construct a hypothetical, ridiculously high tax structure that would cause a huge exodus.
Except that Texas is very much the outlier: it’s probably more accurate to counter someone pointing out Texas with “yeah, but all the other red states are takers from the federal government.”
The second paragraph is true if there weren’t an empirical comparison available: strong economies may be possible under liberal or conservative governments. But other than Texas, they aren’t strong.
The past 35 years have conclusively shown that we haven’t yet hit the point where high taxes depress the economy so much that it negatively impacts government revenues. Tax decreases have led to revenue decreases (excepting tax decreases that are actually tax increases such as the payroll tax hike of the 80s). The latest experiment in Kansas is yet another shovel on the grave of voodoo economics.
Perhaps you would like to point to a conserative state yourself as an example? Since the link you linked to wasnt sortable by per capita, the only conservative state that I saw that I could find that exceeded California per capita was Wyoming.
Most of these states have higher GDP per capita because they have relatively few people to spread it among and an economy based primarily on resource extraction. For example, in Wyoming, far and away the largest industrial sector is mining (mostly coal and oil/gas); that sector accounts for about a quarter of their entire GDP. That sector accounts for only about a tenth of the private-sector jobs in the state, though, and the state ranks dead-last in population, having fewer inhabitants than Washington, D.C.
Similarly, Alaska’s main industry is oil & gas (their second largest is government); they rank 47th in population (neatly splitting South Dakota in 46th place and North Dakota in 48th). North Dakota’s biggest industry is oil and gas; South Dakota’s financial sector is their biggest source of GDP, but not because of low taxes–South Dakota became Credit Card Central when they ditched their usury laws. Credit card companies headquartered in South Dakota could charge any interest rate they wanted to any cardholder, regardless of residence, so dozens of big banks moved their credit card operations there in the 1970s and early 80s.
Texas takes more in federal spending than it pays out in taxes and that’s been true for a few years now. Certainly not true for California, which pays out more in federal taxes than it receives in federal spending.
But that wasn’t the question. The question was which conservative states had strong economies. The claim was only TX, which is simply not true. You can always come up with some reason why such-and-such state “doesn’t count”. Maybe CA shouldn’t “count” because it’s the only state with a mild, Mediterranean climate, an enormous coastline with one of the best natural harbors in the world, abundant natural resources, etc etc etc.
These states, and others like them, had booming economies when oil was booming, but when oil prices plunged, so did their prospects, because they don’t have strong, diverse economies. Looking at one metric for one year doesn’t tell you much about strength.
Every state’s economy rises and falls at times. If you want to focus on which states have had bad economies at certain times, then we can put liberal CA in that category, too. What you are going to find, then, is that liberal states sometimes have good economies, and sometimes they have bad economies. Conservative states have good economies, and bad economies.
If you want to complain about that data, I would say that 2010 was too close to the Great Recession to be particularly instructive. But that was the date I found data to be available across all states. If you want to present some other, comprehensive data, please do so. But do it for ALL states, not just a few. I would like to see if in your selected date, TX is the only conservative state with an economy that is strong (which I have defined as having a per capita GDP that is above average). That was the claim I was disputing.
The question of which “tribe” pays more in taxes should be obvious.
Which states have the highest tax rates? Liberal states.
Which states have the lowest tax rates? Conservative states.
Which states are jam-packed with people? Liberal states. It’s why we can win fewer total states in the election and still win the election.
Which states are hickville and have barely any people? Conservative states. If it weren’t for Texas, where a good 45% of the population is now Democrat and living in the economic centers of your state (the cities) you wouldn’t even have that.
Large numbers of people paying a higher tax rate = more tax dollars.
Which states pay into the fed? Which states suck from the fed’s teats?
The question of which tribe pays more in taxes is pretty simple. Don’t know how you could suggest low-population states paying low taxes end up paying more taxes than high-population states paying high taxes.
I can think of a way that Republicans paid more in taxes. If literally every billionaire was a Republican, since they pay such a big portion by themselves. But they’re not. There are plenty of billionaire liberals who say they should be paying even more in taxes. Look at Warren Buffet and Bill Gates.
Since people from hickville Nowhere haven’t balanced a budget, attracted jobs or educated people to work them, rely on federal dollars, and want to keep more of their own money, and keep electing Republicans who turn down the help, I say give them what they want. Kansas. Allow Kansas to fail. Allow all the red states to fail. And, in fairness, let the insolvent blue states fail too.
What will be left standing are some particularly wealthy Republican states like Alaska and Texas, and a ton of blue states. Then, people from the failed states can choose to continue living in their own ignorance and failure, or they can elect some Democrats, or they can move to a better state and contribute to the unemployment rate in that state until they become better and more responsible members of society.