Thursday, February 23, 2012

Red State Subsidy

Republicans are all about personal responsibility, self-reliance, and eschewing government handouts. Right? Actually, the numbers tell a different story.

The chart, created by Aaron Carroll of The Incidental Economist, displays data for the ten most conservative and ten most liberal states as ranked by Gallup. On the horizontal axis is the conservative minus liberal score, ie. more conservative states further right and more liberal states further left. The vertical axis is the ratio of federal transfers to personal income.

Wealth Transfer from Liberal to Conservative States

The data show unequivocally that the conservative states on average (0.21) are more dependent on government support than the liberal states (0.17). While Red state politicians pander against government aid to exceedingly receptive crowds of conservatives voters, those same states are receiving more transfers from the federal government than their liberal counterparts.

Panderbear is not surprised that conservative states receive more federal aid. They are on average poorer states. What is hard to fathom is why Red state moochers are the most dead set against federal transfers? Why bite the hand that feeds you? Panderbear will discuss possible reasons for this logical dissonance another day.

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1 comment:

  1. The axiom is: "Whenever a conservative, Teatard or Republican complains about something, that is precisely what they're doing."

    This applies to the following.

    1. The most anti-gay politicians are themselves in the closet. We've had enough closet cases outed in the last 10 years to know that this is a bona fide fact.

    2. Those who scream the most about abortion and contraception have had an abortion and use contraception.

    ETC.

    Name the targeted issue or group and you will instantly have a person who is doing precisely what they don't want YOU to do.

    PERIOD.

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