Why are red state 'welfare queen' oligarchs allowed to mooch off of blue states? |
Story by Thom Hartmann
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/why-are-red...f&ei=7
Ironically, it turns out that Red states are able to carry out their campaign of reviving the old Confederacy and its values of patriarchy, hierarchy, and wage slavery in large part because Blue states are subsidizing them.
While Donald Trump carried 2,497 counties in the 2020 election compared to Joe Biden’s 477 counties, the Blue counties Biden carried generated a total of 71 percent of the nation’s economic activity.
The fiscal health of Blue states and counties — along with widespread Red state poverty exacerbated by Red State tax breaks for the morbidly rich — accounts for the bizarre reality that Blue states are subsidizing the brutal and retrograde policies of Red states.
A March 2023 report from the Rockefeller Institute lays out how glaring this appropriation of Blue state revenue is by the Red states. In just New York, for example, they write that over a five-year period:
“New York taxpayers have given $142.6 billion more to the federal government than New York residents have received back in federal spending.”
As the Associated Press summarized in an article titled AP FACT CHECK: Blue high-tax states fund red low-tax states:
“Mississippi received $2.13 for every tax dollar the state sent to Washington in 2015, according to the Rockefeller study. West Virginia received $2.07, Kentucky got $1.90 and South Carolina got $1.71.
“Meanwhile, New Jersey received 74 cents in federal spending for tax every dollar the state sent to Washington. New York received 81 cents, Connecticut received 82 cents and Massachusetts received 83 cents.
“California fared a bit better than other blue states. It received 96 cents for every dollar the state sent to Washington.”
When the Biden administration tried to just slightly slow down the Red state gravy train, specifying in the American Rescue Plan that the subsidies to the states for helping people who lost their jobs due to Covid could not be misappropriated and redirected to tax cuts for local billionaires, their politicians — dancing to the tune of their in-state oligarchs — went ballistic. As Forbes documented:
“So far, a total of 18 red states are plaintiffs in five separate lawsuits challenging a provision in the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Biden signed into law last month which says that state governments cannot use any of the $350 billion in federal pandemic relief funds coming their way to ‘either directly or indirectly offset a reduction’ in their net tax revenue resulting from state tax cuts.
“In a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, 21 Republican state attorneys general described it as ‘the greatest attempted invasion of state sovereignty by Congress in the history of our Republic.’”
Federal policy fails to equalize revenue flowing to Red states against the tax money they send Washington DC. This loophole in US tax law is driving this bizarre process where citizens in Blue states are forced by law to pay for all-white “Christian” academies, enforcement of abortion restrictions, persecution of asylum seekers and immigrants, and political attacks on queer people.
Red state “welfare queen” governors and legislatures are going to happily continue this grift as long as we let them get away with it. Congress should pass legislation mandating that Red state revenues to DC must at least match 90 percent of the money they get back; 100 percent would be better, and help hugely with our nation’s budget deficit.
It’s time to end Red state welfare!
Story by Thom Hartmann
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/why-are-red...f&ei=7
Ironically, it turns out that Red states are able to carry out their campaign of reviving the old Confederacy and its values of patriarchy, hierarchy, and wage slavery in large part because Blue states are subsidizing them.
While Donald Trump carried 2,497 counties in the 2020 election compared to Joe Biden’s 477 counties, the Blue counties Biden carried generated a total of 71 percent of the nation’s economic activity.
The fiscal health of Blue states and counties — along with widespread Red state poverty exacerbated by Red State tax breaks for the morbidly rich — accounts for the bizarre reality that Blue states are subsidizing the brutal and retrograde policies of Red states.
A March 2023 report from the Rockefeller Institute lays out how glaring this appropriation of Blue state revenue is by the Red states. In just New York, for example, they write that over a five-year period:
“New York taxpayers have given $142.6 billion more to the federal government than New York residents have received back in federal spending.”
As the Associated Press summarized in an article titled AP FACT CHECK: Blue high-tax states fund red low-tax states:
“Mississippi received $2.13 for every tax dollar the state sent to Washington in 2015, according to the Rockefeller study. West Virginia received $2.07, Kentucky got $1.90 and South Carolina got $1.71.
“Meanwhile, New Jersey received 74 cents in federal spending for tax every dollar the state sent to Washington. New York received 81 cents, Connecticut received 82 cents and Massachusetts received 83 cents.
“California fared a bit better than other blue states. It received 96 cents for every dollar the state sent to Washington.”
When the Biden administration tried to just slightly slow down the Red state gravy train, specifying in the American Rescue Plan that the subsidies to the states for helping people who lost their jobs due to Covid could not be misappropriated and redirected to tax cuts for local billionaires, their politicians — dancing to the tune of their in-state oligarchs — went ballistic. As Forbes documented:
“So far, a total of 18 red states are plaintiffs in five separate lawsuits challenging a provision in the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan Biden signed into law last month which says that state governments cannot use any of the $350 billion in federal pandemic relief funds coming their way to ‘either directly or indirectly offset a reduction’ in their net tax revenue resulting from state tax cuts.
“In a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, 21 Republican state attorneys general described it as ‘the greatest attempted invasion of state sovereignty by Congress in the history of our Republic.’”
Federal policy fails to equalize revenue flowing to Red states against the tax money they send Washington DC. This loophole in US tax law is driving this bizarre process where citizens in Blue states are forced by law to pay for all-white “Christian” academies, enforcement of abortion restrictions, persecution of asylum seekers and immigrants, and political attacks on queer people.
Red state “welfare queen” governors and legislatures are going to happily continue this grift as long as we let them get away with it. Congress should pass legislation mandating that Red state revenues to DC must at least match 90 percent of the money they get back; 100 percent would be better, and help hugely with our nation’s budget deficit.
It’s time to end Red state welfare!
