Why this assumption that the metrics liberals are using are just based on urbanization? City life or country, more education is generally better than less education, for instance, but red states tend to be less educated. And I’ve never heard of anywhere in the world where living longer is considered a bad thing.
Nitpick: Houston is not a city, it is a strip mall.
The root of the Tea Party rage is the same as the anger expressed here toward red staters sucking off the government teat. We work hard to make money and one third to one half of it goes to the government to buy votes for politicians and support people who don’t work.
It is great that the economic refugees from liberalism can move to red states, but Washington is trying to turn the whole country into a blue state. Higher taxes, higher spending, higher regulations, until the whole country is California. Where are we going to move then? Up into Canada with those poutine eating hockey lovers? shouldn’t that enrage people?
The main problem in California was the real estate bust, which was caused by too little government regulation. Since they have a Democratic governor and super majorities in the legislature, they have their house in order.
Well, your profile says you live in Washington DC. Lots of Our Tax Dollars have gone to build nice buildings in that fair city. Wasn’t your Metro mostly subsidized by the rest of the country, too?
… with their public health care?
So your story is that starting in 1990 people knew that there was going to be a housing bust in 2007 and starting leaving in droves in anticipation?
California housing is some of the most regulated in the country. It is one of the worst states in the country to build houses in thanks to smart growth regulations and green space regulations. Because of this home prices have skyrocketed. The median income in California is 5.2% higher than the national average. The median value of a home in California is 76.8% higher than the national average. Thus the real estate bust hit California the hardest due to California’s housing policies.
California does not have its house in order. They have raised taxes to close the deficits, but they still have 132 billion dollars in debt. That does not include the public pension liabilties which are estimated at 485 billion dollars.
They already have the highest income taxes in the land, and the 11th highest total tax rate in the country. The only thing keeping them from the top tax rate is low taxes on land which were written into the constitution when republicans were in charge. For all these taxes, California has three of the top ten cities for traffic so they must not be spending the money on roads and two of the top ten cities in crime rate so they must not be spending the money on cops. It has below average schools and does the worse job in the country of educating hispanic students so the money must not be going to schools. If you adjust for cost of living California has the highest poverty rate in the country.
I would hardly say that California has its house in order.
I live in San Antonio, TX and the part of the state that “sucks” is apparently elsewhere as we love it here.
You mean like the nice building where we don’t have any representation? Look, as an East Coast Liberal, I’m happy to be paying more in taxes to support the federally subsidized “rugged individualism” of my neighbors to the south. I just wish they would say thank you every once in a while and maybe not try to pit Jesus in our science classes.
Uhh…yes, please?
It’s ironic so many Tea Partiers/conservatives make fun/hate the idea of the US being like Canada, despite the fact that in some ways, it’s exactly what they want. A much smaller federal government with more control being in the hands of the provincial governments.
Oh, but they have socialized medicine and that’s bad in every way, shape, or form. Right. :rolleyes:
I live in Vermont and it is pure utopia. (TRUE.)
Those of us here in the south and love it too. We would prefer yall just stay where you are.
I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic.
That’s about IQ or “intelligence” at least, not about how well the systems work.
I am not a right winger but the question fails in many other ways.
If we presume that “right wing” means a stated wish for small Federal Government with more local control when control is needed at all (a big presumption since “right wing” means many different things depending on who is saying it) then one can clearly see that what they want does not change the fact that what they want does not change that they still get decisions made elsewhere. Also, someone who believes that the Federal government should bug out may have no problem with the state or the district doing similar things.
And that is if we presume that. Right wing means other things too. Hence the current civil war in the GOP.
Also correlation is not causation. Being rural and fundamentalist is correlated with poorer outcomes on the variety metrics listed in the op (education, income, etc.) and is correlated with endorsing conservative views. But that in no way means that being conservative caused the poorer outcomes.
Has the OP ever actually been to those RED states? It seems silly to make such wide ranging claims against a way of life that they might know nothing about.
The ironic thing is that liberals continue to love Canada even though it saw liberalism not working and abandoned it. They had a large deficit and a huge amount of debt just like the US does, but instead of trying to spend their way out of debt they cut government programs. They cut government spending on programs 14% less in only three years. This allowed them to have a surplus, pay down the debt and cut taxes. Now Canada has lower federal taxes on high incomes, lower capital gains taxes, lower corporate taxes, and lower payroll taxes. That is why when the liberals take over the red states we will have to move to Canada to find sane governance.
The bad thing will be having to shiver in line at Tim Horton’s with some hoser in a Nordiques jersey trying to talk to you aboot the forechecking in the game last night.
California has not “failed” and will not fail. It has issues, primarily because it is so big. But it will get through them.
I live in California and I am doing fine. I wouldn’t live anywhere else.
Is that true? I’ve smugly believed that Massachusetts paid more in federal taxes than it spends for quite a while now. I tried to google it:
Texas pays more, Utah spends more.
California and Washington and Massachusetts pay more. Oregon spends more.
Of course it is wikipedia and the “neutrality of this section is in dispute” so who knows what that means.
I did not read further on the topic, but that’s all I have to go on for now. Do you have a source for your assertion?
According to the chart found here, Texas contributes more than it spends. DC? Check it out for yourself. If you can find better figures, please provide a link.
I understand the temptation to see “Flyover Country” or “Outside the Beltway” as simplistic blobs of Red & Blue, but the reality is a bit more complex. Not every person in The Red States is a racist, redneck Republican. And not every Blue Stater is a sophisticated, urbane Democrat.
There are many great things about California, the wonderful beaches, the beatiful redwood trees, the breathtaking Yosemite Park, the best climate on the continent, the most beautiful city in the country, some of the best soil in the country, some of the best wine making in the world, DisneyLand, the best ports on the west coast, great universities, the most offshore oil on either coast, Hollywood, Silicon Valley, on and on. But yet the state and munincipal governments have managed to take all those advantages and make California a place where millions of people have left and is only maintaining its population through immigration.
California used to be the best state in the country at attracting people to live in it and now the only it way it attacts people is by being slightly better than Mexico.
I was using thismap from Talking Points Memo. It is at odds with Wikipedia and I guess it depends on how you measure things.
Taking another look at Massachusetts it appears I was looking at Rhode Island before, Massachusetts is actually the second in the country at getting the least money back for its tax money. How do you like them apples?
