More to the point, the federal tax deduction for state income taxes benefits those state populations who are already rich for other reasons, and thus does not cause some states to be richer than others in the first place. This differs from federal subsidies not connected to this tax policy, which do cause some states to become richer relative to others (and makes it all the more embarrassing for advocates of red-state policies that those states tend to lag behind despite such largesse).
Those claiming that progressive policies produce wealth need to determine which came first, the progressive politics or the wealth. ISTM that the income disparities either predate the split or result from the fact that over the last 150 years, societies whose economy was based on manufacturing and technology have done better than those whose economies were based on agriculture.
Do you have any evidence that these groups welcomed the various other groups, as you describe? I don’t think that’s historically accurate.
A sheltered liberal viewpoint that ignores the fact that cities, where ideological progressives harvest their votes through machine political maneuvers, have the worst schools by far. Those compassionate and cooperative liberals are nowhere to be found when it comes to educating their prize-cow minority blocs. Oh wait, it’s early voting period, there they are on urban radio, hiring a voice talent with just a hint of local dialect showing, telling their oppressed how they must get out and “vote for jobs”.
Schools? We’ve done that discussion before:
For cultural reasons. Those areas have been government-hostile throughout American history. They take the support, but I’m sure they somehow resent it and blame government for the fact that they need it.
I am coming late to this thread, but feel compelled to jump in anyway.
Regarding evidence, you could compare this image (household income by county) with this image (election results by county). The correlation is not perfect, but it appears that degree of redness in the last presidential election correlates with lower median household income. I don’t believe the whole meme that poor people (all 47% of them?) generally vote Democratic, perhaps you can post a comprehensive cite that backs up this belief of yours…
Wow, this whole discussion is seriously poisoned in my opinion; long on rhetoric and short of facts. Just to keep the stirring going, I think much of this is explained by the market, i.e.:
Wealthier districts have better schools and services, which makes people with money want to move there (increasing demand), which allows the wealthier districts to raise prices (i.e. taxes), which allows the districts to offer better schools and services. The engines of wealth creation (i.e. small businesses, high tech firms, medical firms etc…) are mostly located in areas with better services and higher standards of living because this is where the talented and educated people are. This is where they want to be.
Well and good, but why do these districts vote Democratic? That is harder to answer as it is true that the percentage that votes Republican (or at least identifies as conservative) rises with income. Note, that the percentage that identifies as liberal appears to be independent of income. It is also true that the college educated are typically more progressive. I refuse to believe that Boulder, CO and San Francisco, CA are overwhelmingly democratic and progressive because all the poor people in these districs are voting this way and overwhelming the wealthy (there are very few poor people in either of these cities) just as I don’t believe that McCreary County, KY (per capital income <$10k) is overwhelmingly conservative in spite of all the poor people that live there (don’t the poorest 47% vote democrat?).
You know what is interesting to compare? The percentage of adults with college degrees by county to the way those counties voted in the last presidential election. At first glance it looks like a pretty good correlation. But it still does not explain the causation.
Are those numbers corrected for racial makeup of the state?
Urban political machines are a thing of the past even in Chicago, now; the only surviving entities of that kind nowadays are rural courthouse rings. And, “ideological progressives” never controlled the machines anyway; the machines’ approach to politics was always more businesslike than ideological.
“Corrected” how?
Do students of a given racial group, X, perform better in Democratic States than in Republican ones.
I have no idea, in general, but a much talked about example from the last few years is that Wisconsin has much higher test scores than Texas, but this is entirely attributable to the fact that Texas has a larger African-American population. Students of every racial group have, on average, higher test scores in Texas than in Wisconsin. If you want to compare school systems between states, it would be best to correct for demographics.
http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2011/03/longhorns-17-badgers-1.html
Demographics, like where people live? Or do you pretty much just mean race?
It’s funny - in the linked-to thread, someone else brought up the Texas/Wisconsin cherry for picking.
You could have read the thread. The preference for blue states was there when just including white kids only.