Welfare States

As usual, my apologies for being internetaly non-present. I have been super busy and am working on updating this website. We'll see.

A confluence. In this New York Daily News article, the Right's absurd canard about liberal states being welfare havens is called into question yet again, showing that Sarah Palin's oil rich Alaska takes $1.84 in federal funds for every dollar it puts into federal taxes. This pattern is repeated over and over again in Republican welfare states, while lefty cesspools like New York and California 79 cents and 78 cents respectively.

I first became aware of this phenomena during Senator Kerry's run for president. As he was from the much maligned imaginary state of "Taxachussettes", some brave investigator sought to look up their tax burden. This led to a list of what states paid in federal taxes compared to what they received in federal money. The most recent documentation that I have been able to find is from 2005 and it shows the same patterns. Namely, that liberal states support conservative states who then shout and complain about them. Among southern states, the only two that carry their own weight are Texas and Florida. Florida varies from year to year in these things depending largely on the hurricane season. I would imagine Texas comes in fine due to oil and being really gigantic. But that is just speculation.

If the import of this data doesn't strike you at first just picture the conservative babies in their old fashioned cloth diapers, constantly pooping and crying in their own mess, faces red and arms flailing, until big, liberal mommy comes to change them and they squirm and cry even more, but the adult does the changing that has to be done and the baby goes back to repeat the process.

Which brings us to Emperor Rick Perry of Texas who is making noise about seceding from Medicaid. This is one area where I have definitely seen my political opinion change over the years. Before, I would have argued for the importance of maintaining or national unity. Now, although I acknowledge its dangers, I feel that maybe states should be allowed to go their own way so that we can then stand back and laugh at them. Not that I want to see people in Texas suffer, as they most certainly would without Medicaid, but I feel that the radical conservative agenda is simply not feasible and is only functioning due to the largess of the liberal states. I say we provide an army to defend you from invading countries, help with your interstates and after that Texas...Have at it. One thing the national government could provide was free moving vans for everyone who wanted to leave. This includes South Carolina and Kentucky and every other state that wants to complain about the federal government while sucking it dry for every last cent to keep its failed ideology alive.