Using North Dakota as a teaching tool..

[Fumesucker]

I was talking to a friend today and they mentioned how North Dakota is one of the few states that isn't struggling with a deficit in their budget, this person attributed the situation to the fact that North Dakota has its own state bank.

Since were were sitting around the computer I told them to Google "balance of payments by state" and we found that N Dakota ranks fourth of all the states in how much they get back for each dollar they send to the federal government, a net surplus of $2,513 dollars per resident per year in 1997..

http://www.allcountries.org/uscensus/545_federal_balance_of_payments_per_capita.html

We then started to look at other states balance of payments, I pointed out that the states that are normally thought of as the most conservative are almost uniformly near the top of the list in collecting money from the federal government, more money than they send in federal taxes.

I left my friend deep in thought, they were truly surprised by this information, I could almost hear the gears turning in their head as they processed the new perspective on disbursement and collection of federal monies..

What made it really effective is that I had my friend do the research themselves, they couldn't say that I was making stuff up.

[rurallib]

1. they also have a lot of oil right now.

[russspeakeasy]

2. North Dakota as a teaching tool..I've been there.

I left as soon as I figured out where I was.

[Fumesucker]

3. As the old saying goes..

Everyone serves a purpose, even if only as a bad example..