Red States Outpace Blue States in Income Growth — Thanks to Food Stamps

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2. Two stories of how red states are mired in a culture of dependency on blue states

[font color=blue]STORY #1 - Red states take more tax dollars than blue states[/font]

Excerpts from: http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-08-18/politics/30039546_1_blue-states-federal-taxes-red-states

Take a look at the difference between federal spending on any given state and the federal taxes received from that state. We measure the difference as a dollar amount: Federal Spending per Dollar of Federal Taxes. A figure of $1.00 means that particular state received as much as it paid in to the federal government. Anything over a dollar means the state received more than it paid; anything less than $1.00 means the state paid more in taxes than it received in services. The higher the figure, the more a given state is a welfare queen.

Of the twenty worst states, 16 are either Republican dominated or conservative states. Let's go through the top twenty.

New Mexico: $2.03
Mississippi: $2.02
Alaska: $1.84
Louisiana: $1.78
West Virginia: $1.76
North Dakota: $1.68
Alabama: $1.66
South Dakota: $1.53
Kentucky: $1.51
Virginia: $1.51
Montana: $1.47
Hawaii: $1.44
Maine: $1.41
Arkansas: $1.41
Oklahoma: $1.36
South Carolina: $1.35
Missouri: $1.32
Maryland: $1.30
Tennessee: $1.27
Idaho: $1.21


[font color=blue]STORY #2: 20 of the 22 states with the highest proportion of the 47% (non-federal-income-tax-payers) are Republican states based on the 2004 presidential election[/font]

Non-federal-income-tax-payers are also known as the "47 percenters", after Romney's infamous answer to wealthy donors about the 47% who paid no taxes (actually, Mitt, who paid no federal INCOME taxes -- they pay a whole bunch of other taxes).



#1 thru #10 - see red-colored states on map

In the below, "Repub" means Republican-voting in the 2004 presidential election (Bush v. Kerry), and "Dem" means Democratic-voting in that election. I wanted to use "red" and "blue" terminology, but that conflicts with the colors on the map.

#11 thru #15: Tennessee, N. Carolina, Utah, Arizona, Kentucky

All Repub states, generally speaking. Utah #13. Idaho #10, LOL - the only top-ten state in the geographic north -- I used to live there.

#16 - California (sigh, that's Dem.), #17-Oklahoma, #18-Montana, #19-Indiana #20-Michigan (Dem), #21-Missouri #22-W.Virginia #23-New York (Dem)

Anyway, of the top 22, only California (#16) and Michigan (#20) are Dem states based on the 2004 presidential election. (And likewise in the 2000 presidential election except that New Mexico (#4) was Dem in 2000 and Repub in 2004).

(In 2008, of the top 22, Florida, North Carolina, Indiana, New Mexico went "Dem", i.e. for Obama, while California and Michigan stayed Dem for a total of 6 Dem states by this definition)