I got it from an article:
Total farm aid to all states is about $24 billion out of $4 trillion in annual spending. It’s impossible for that to account for even part of the difference.
The nuance is that you are asking me if I believe an inaccurate statement.
Let me repeat in slightly different terms, for the sake of clarity. Blue states do not fare all that well in the tax bill. Red states fare better. This does not mean that this tax bill requires blue states to “give” anything to red states. If red states are having their taxes cut by $5, and blue states by $1, that doesn’t mean that some increased number of dollars are leaving blue states to be spread around red states. It just means that the Federal government is $6 poorer, and spending continues along its merry way (for now).
If you think retirees are just going to sit around and say, “Oh well, there goes my Social Security! Nothing I can do about it, because that tax bill passed in the dark of night a while back…” you’re fucking stupid.
Republican politicians talk big about cutting Social Security, as a means of appeasing other politicians and think tanks that are deficit hawks. “Don’t worry – we’ll balance the budget later! We promise!!”
I’m sure there will be some sort of try to do so. Probably not in 2018, as no House member wants to run on a platform of cutting grandma’s check. Maybe in 2019, and not in 2020, that’s for sure. And I’m certain that Social Security recipients are going to flip out when Republicans try, just like when Bush tried to privatize Social Security after reckless tax cuts, and he failed.
Well we may have lost this battle. Sucks. If we can win in 2020 we can reverse this bill.
I’m still surprised Collins voted for this. She at least pretends to care about working people. This bill screws them to reward the rich.
You’re going to have to parse that cite, because I don’t think it responds to what I was asking. I asked, what types of Federal funding make these states “taker” states, in your opinion.
Your cite says that those states are taker states, what percent of the states budgets are Federal transfers, and how many Federal jobs they have, and so on. Are you saying that the number of Federal employees per capita is what makes them taker states? That doesn’t add up.
Here is a coherent explaination from Pew, a source much better than the near-listicles that Business Insider is known for.
It explains:
So the vast bulk of spending in states consists of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Not Federal employee salaries, as Business Insider would lead you to believe with those meaningless statistics.
And go ahead and look to see what that means in terms of Federal spending as percentages of state GDP: Federal retirement benefits account for about 11-12% of Mississippi’s and Alabama’s GDP, as opposed to 4% of California’s. And that’s completely fine: everyone in the nation pays into Social Security, and everyone draws out as they were promised. Same with Medicare, which is also about 10-11% of the GDP of those two states. Everyone pays in, and everyone gets something out. And those two programs make up about 60% of Federal spending in those states, whereas those entitlements make up almost exactly half of Federal spending in California.
That doesn’t mean that Mississippi and Alabama are getting away with something as compared to California!
If anything, California, as a percentage of Federal aid, does BETTER than Mississippi and Alabama in competing for grants and contracts, which encompass things like road construction, defense spending, Medicaid, and basically everything else.
So?
All states have old people. I showed that blue states have more old people than red states (generally) in a previous post.
At the end of the day you can look at a state and decide how much they send to the federal government and how much they get back. Blue states generally send more to the federal government than they get back. Red states generally take more than they send (there are of course exceptions on both sides to this). Hence taker states. You can quibble over where that money is going all you like but it does not change the basic truth.
I was going to say that I can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but it’s really more like “You can’t dissuade someone from using an inaccurate talking point if it happens to suit their political purpose.”
Especially when it is backed up by the actual numbers.
Money is in a blue state.
It gets taxed.
It ends up in a red state.
You can rationalize and defend the reasons for this transfer of wealth all you like, but to deny that it is in fact happening, that monies generated in states that have more urban populations and democratic leaning constituents tend to end up in states that have more rural populations and republican leaning constituents is what is inaccurate.
I mean, I don’t disagree with the wealth transfer, ideologically. If they need the money, and the wealthier states have the money, then it is part of the reason of being in a social structure like the US that we help eachother out. I am for wealth transfers from wealthy individuals to poor individuals, so it would be hypocritical to be against wealth transfers from wealthy states to poor states.
It’s just that those who are the beneficiaries of the wealth transfer are the ones complaining the most about the apparatus that performs it.
You have yet to show anything I posted is inaccurate.
You took a swipe at Business Insider but you didn’t show they were wrong. That might be fine for you but I need more than your peremptory dismissal to suggest you are right about it.
In this case, the substantial majority of the reason for any transfer of wealth is being done for a very good reason: Social Security and Medicare. This transfer is NOT IMPACTED in any way by the tax bill – those two transfers aren’t even funded by the income tax!
The stupid Republican tax bill could have figured some way to cut red state taxes by 100% and increase blue state taxes by 100%, and Social Security and Medicare spending in red states wouldn’t change at all.
Furthermore, there’s been so many insinuations that red states are getting away with something – in my words, like they are stealing money from blue states – and the reality is that the vast majority of the differential in the donor/taker state status is entirely reasonable and, in fact, good.
But noooooo, hardly anyone in this thread can resist a good jab at red states, whether it is warranted or not.
Actually, I said that the cite was essentially irrelevant and contentless. I specifically said what you posted had nothing to do with my question.
If you asked me how computers work, and I give you a pineapple, I can’t then complain that you have yet to prove my irrelevant reply to be wrong.
Dammit, he played the liberal hypocrisy card! Shit, we lose again!
I showed you that most elderly do not live in red states which are the taker states. You asked for how I defined “taker states”. I showed you how I defined it. You decided that does not count and has nothing to do with your position which seems welded to the wealth transfer being tied to social security.
Come full circle then. I showed you most elderly live in blue states. So if you are right why aren’t blue states the taker states?
And I told you that counting up population is the wrong thing to count. Let’s say state A had one million retirees, out of a population of 10 million. And state B had 700,000 retirees out of a population of 4 million. We know which state has more retirees; do you want to guess which states are almost certain to have donor and which one taker status?
Liberals can play the card too, yaknow.
Admit it: it is a dick move to simultaneously assert these two things:
- Everyone in America should be covered by a social safety net that includes Social Security, Medicare, and hopefully one day universal health care.
- Fuck those thieving red staters for taking Social Security, Medicare, and hopefully fuck them someday for taking universal health care.
I think it’s more fuck them for constantly electing politicians that want to tear those systems down for everyone, while they themselves benefit from them greatly.
But it still changes the balance further in favor of moving wealth from the blue to the red states.
I do not think that they are stealing, just that they are beneficiaries of a generous welfare system. I have no problem with that.
The problem I have is two fold.
One, they don’t much appreciate it, and elect people to congress to harm the country that is propping them up, making it even harder for the blue states to effectively continue to support them financially. That the greatest beneficiaries of the federal govt are it’s biggest critics strike me as a bit hypocritical.
Two, they are increasing that transfer. More of the money generated in blue states will be going to the red states to prop them up. Once again, I wouldn’t have a problem with that if that was what was necessary in order to keep them able to provide services to their residents, but it isn’t necessary, and it is also a part of a wealth grab by the very wealthy.
Yeah, that’s the only reason to bring up the wealth transfer, a good jab. Couldn’t have anything to do with the actual numbers that show it happening, along with the attitudes of the recipients of the largess as if those who work hard to pay taxes to support them are evil libruls of the democrat collective that want to kill babies and take away their guns.
ETA:
Who is saying 2?
Double ETA:
Unless by “taking” you mean “taking away”, in which case, yeah, I am a #2 there, but I don’t see how it would be hypocritical.
The point is that the things that cause states to be doners or takers aren’t impacted by the tax bill.
So the top ten states with the highest percentage of elderly (using my previous cites and this one – the number is most dependent to least dependent on federal funds 1-50 and color is political leaning):
- Florida (25, purple)
- Pennsylvania (22, light blue)
- West Virginia (5, red)
- Iowa (30, purple)
- North Dakota (32, red)
- Rhode Island (24, blue)
- Maine (9, blue)
- South Dakota (13, red)
- Arkansas (27, red)
- Connecticut (42, blue)
Looking at that suggests to me it is not the percentage of elderly skewing red states. It is kind of spread around sufficiently to suggest your premise is wrong.
Well, when the Pew Foundation comes up against wallethub.com and businessinsider.com, we apparently now know who the real experts are!
Does the tax bill not change the balance of the donations to the fed?