Can I say that I'm pretty sick of hearing the liberal blogosphere bitch about so-called
Red State Welfare. There's some debateable programs in existence, like the size of the current farm bill, but a lot of the lop-sidedness in federal taxation v. federal expenditures by states is for other reasons?
First, let's take a look at the study being used to bolster these claims: Federal Tax Burdens and Expenditures By State. The study is from the Tax Foundation and it documents a few things. First, New Mexico gets a lot of federal money and doesn't pay much in federal taxes. Why is that? Well, the federal money is for things like nuclear research. New Mexico is the center of a lot of government research. As for the federal tax revenues, I'm not sure, since New Mexico's economy seems to do fine, except that maybe all that federal money means that a lot of the state is tax-exempt. That's simply what happens with research. It seems pretty stupid to me, though, to be bashing the state that is our strongest state in a region that is becoming bluer.
One feature that explains why the West overall tends to receive more than it spends is the farm bill. But there are other thins as well, like federal lands management and fire fighting. We have huge forest fires. We also have huge numbers of fire fighters here in the summer. And we have a huge forest service. That's all federal money.
So why does Montana get more money back than Wyoming? Well, we don't actually. Our tax expenditures are about equal. It's just that they pay more in taxes than we do because they have more oil and gas development because they're, well, redder than we are.
So what's up with Nevada, which has a larger number of federal lands as a percentage of the state than anywhere else in the country, except for maybe Alaska? Well, they have a lot of gambling, that is also taxed quite heavily.
Alaska, with all of its federal land and its talented pork barrel senators gets a lot. I'm not sure exactly why Alaska has had a drop in its tax burden, but I do know its tax burden would probably rise if Blue Staters would let Alaska drill ANWR.
States with public land sometimes lose out on money because we don't always tap our natural resources, sometimes, as in Alaska's case, because Blue State enviros don't want it done (in all fairness, I agree with the BSE on ANWR). But then there's a double pissed-off nature. These people have a bunch of land that they don't get to make decisions about and they're told to stop living off the federal teat.
Oh yeah, the other reason for these inequalities is because a lot of people in Red States make less money, hence we pay less in federal income tax. Grab your shotguns, assholes, and shoot the poor.
You want to know what's costing us votes in these states? It's your damn attitudes, so please shut the fork up before attacking the states you need to win.
[editor's note, by Left in the West] Cross-posted from Left in the West.com