From an campaign and election that had consistantly twisted and turned in the direction opposite of expected, comes this bit of information from the Associated Press.
OK, maybe it really isn’t an irony since this trend has been running for at least ten years. However it’s interesting that the very states that would lose out if revenue is cut due to tax reductions would be the ones that supported Bush and vice versa for Al Gore. Am I saying that a big tax cut would harm the South? I don’t know. I’ve just been introduced to this subject by my intellectual curiosity (which seems to be tuned in to the irony frequency). If the federal tax burden was why one votes Republican, why aren’t they more prevalent in the North? Is it the social conservatism? Are they hoping someday to be able to tax the South into submission? (It’s not working.) Is their some subtext that makes lower taxes and lower services seem more reasonable than this Yankee is making it out to be? (Imagine that, a yankee in Virginia.)
The question is a tad vague without knowing why the South and West received more tax dollars. For instance, the Southeast gets hit with lots of hurricanes. Federal disaster relief money gets poured into those states. Does that count? What about farm subsidies? Rural states tend to vote Republican. There are a lot of factors involved, and without knowing more details about where the money goes its a bit hard to draw conclusions between political tendencies and money flows.
One reason for the disparity in dollar flow is the large number of military bases, naval stations, and air fields in the South. Just here in Georgia we have Forts Benning in Columbus, Stewart in Savannah, Gordon in Augusta and Gilliam in Atlanta. There’s a Trident sub base south of Savannah, air bases in Marietta and Valdosta, and I’m sure I’m missing some.
These are huge enterprises, some comprising many 10’s of thousands of acres, not all of it by any means scrub pines and snakes, and they require a vast outlay to support.
Another factor to consider in this connection are defense contractors. Lockheed-Martin in the past year was threatened with the removal of a C5A contract to another facility. A big arguement in favor of keeping them in place was Lockheed’s proximity to air bases. That’s several billion right there.
A lot of it depends on how those federal dollars spent is classified. A lot of southern, and western states receive federal funds for items that aren’t really for the benefit of those states. Large states with few people have lots of federal roads that need to be maintained. Those maintenence costs count as money spent in those states, even though a lot of the roads are mostly for the benefit of those at either end, rather than the people in the intervening states.The deal is the same with a lot of Federal desposal sites development facilities, and military stuff. It is put in those states because they don’t have the congressional power to block it, but then the funding by the federal government spends the money to develop and maintain them which looks like it is for the state.
I disagree that how the money is spent in southern and western states is classified is relevant. The point is that if taxes are cut, there will be less federal money to spend (unless we go back to deficit spending :eek: ). So regardless of how the money is spent, the net result will be that less money is available, and the south and west will be disproportionately affected (unless they use their majorities in Congress to keep their funding levels the same, and cut the spending in the northeast and great lakes even more. But that would never happen, cause that would be unfair, right?)