Saturday, February 16, 2013

The Myth of Red State Welfare - Revisited

Of all the topics I have covered since the end of true freedom in this country last November, next to actual secession topics this one about Red States taking more Welfare than Blue states has been one of my favorites.

As with most Liberal/Feminist/Progressive talking points this one continues to fall apart  shatter apart the more I look into it.

The original work I did on this had a naysayer (Yes pointing fingers at Russ here /smile) and eventually got a troll posting about how my findings were not true. That post is still receiving a fair number of hits if you are interested you can find it here.

Before I continue a few basic understandings must be hashed out. To begin with I have found that when the actual welfare spending per individual household or caseload is examined, which includes that money spent by individual states at the direction of the Federal government, the numbers swing heavily to the Blue states receiving the most over all welfare money. You can see this play out with the numbers of caseloads which I detailed in the linked post above. This is a deception much like how educational spending is handled by the Federal Government's influence but then not actually counted as a Federal expenditure, however the deception of welfare spending does not end there.

Food stamp spending through the Ag Department rolls agricultural subsidies into the mix of States who receive them as welfare spending. This is turn ends up being another non-counted subsidy/welfare expenditure that benefits non-producing areas as well. Also export sales of agricultural products are not taxed and credited to a state (except as income of the producer) until they are sold and delivered. Another words as far as the actual tax or fees/whatever collected it ends up being recorded at middleman ports who get credit for production from landlocked Red areas.

Are you getting the picture here yet?

Another part of this that we must keep in mind is that production and income are NOT the same thing. How a government manipulates it's infrastructure and ports has more effect on the differing areas of a country than actual production ever will. Especially if it uses the ports as a collection area. I think you see the point I am making.

The end result is that in actual production the wealth of the more rural Red states is transported to and claimed by the Blue Metro enclaves.

Now this is of course not necessarily a bad set up but it does present an opportunity to skew the numbers if someone wishes to not tell the whole story.

Of course I did not check the common tax laws for all the Red states, only a few, so it is possible that some Red states handle the taxes on agricultural, mining, timber, oil exports to other states differently. Still it is not unreasonable to assume here that all the so called "welfare" spending the Federal Government wishes to claim is not a case of taking from other production areas to place somewhere else. No.  It is simply money flowing back into the production areas that were not allowed the taxes on that production and commerce to begin with.

Again do not forget to view actual caseload expenditures by the large export states with incomes well above their reported production numbers. This is the key and in viewing particularly California's input to Federal Tax money compared to actual production numbers is what tipped me off.

The end result is this my friends. You and I know what actual production is. We know which States and areas have the resources and do the actual production. While combining raw materials is also production and is done in Blue areas still, most of that has been shipped overseas. Without the ability to collect their own taxes Red states are required to live through Middlemen and allow the Federal government to collect and re-distribute that money back.

Without the Federal Government middleman set up Red States would have no need for welfare Spending by and large anyway.

The Libs won't buy it no matter how you present it. Even showing them actual welfare spending by caseload that includes State expenditures that the Government allows/demands them to keep gets us no where. So why bother?

Just remember income is not production and let them eat their dollars while we make bread. There is no economic reason Red States cannot make a go on their own when the Progressives finally force us to do so.

Keep Prepping Everyone!!!


4 comments:

  1. Red states do get more tax dollars. Control for military installations and I think that would not be the case (also most who serve are from Red states - thanks for your service, BTW). I guess if the Blue states would like to move the silos/nukes to NY, no problem. Also a lot of highway dollars. Again, if the Blue states would like to buy all their food from someplace else, that would work.

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    1. SS - Yep Red states get more back because they are not allowed to keep as much as the Blue. Which is really one of the points I was making.

      In the end he who controls the food however...

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  2. I think my biggest problem with the Blue/Red divide is that a lot of States are both Blue and Red. Even some of the Bluest states out there (New Jersey, New York, Massachussets) elect Republicans to statewide office.

    Finance is the tale that is wagging the dog at the moment. That Finance is located mostly in Blue States (with some serious exceptions) certainly makes for some very odd political bedfellows. I am not sure I would honor them with the title "middlemen" though.

    So many people, at so many levels, have their hand out, it is really hard to untangle who is a bigger net drain. So long as other countries keep cutting their currencies so we can buy their stuff at a discount though, we should be o.k.

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    1. Russ - I realize the map is mingled and the lines are blurring. My real issue with this and the other post are to show that wealth is not income and taxes collected is not the same as taxable production. The Federal government collects the taxes of the producing red states in the blue areas but to use that as an argument that Red states can't support themselves is a fallacy.

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