Since the election a lot of anger and indignation has been expressed by liberals over the fact that the "red" states typically take in more in Federal Aid per tax dollar than the "blue" states do. Cries of "cut them off" and suggestions that these states are somehow not voting in their best interests have been widespread.
The data supporting this comes from a recent Tax Foundation report that was summarized here and is illustrated by a map that deliberately mirrors the electoral college map in it's use of the colors blue and red:
This map suggests a strong correlation between voting habits and federal aid per tax dollar. However, I believe that it is as fundamentally misleading as the typical electoral map that shows states won by Kerry as all blue and states won by Bush as all red.
First, it isn't really blue states funding red states, per se, but the wealthy funding the poor (which is exactly the way it is supposed to work in a progressive society) through programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, Section 8, Title 1, etc.
Because of this, if you were to parse the federal aid per tax dollar down to the county or zip code level, you'd find that the poorer communities in every state are taking more in than they give out (again, as it should be). This is similar to what happens when you break down the electoral map by county; you find that blue states aren't really all blue and the red states aren't really all red, as this alternate electoral map shows (and yes, I know a better map is one weighted by population, but this will do for now):
I don't know if the data is available on a county-by-county basis that would allow someone to make a comparable map for federal aid per tax dollar (if anyone here can access the data and map it, I'd be most appreciative!). However, I suspect that such a map wouldn't mirror the above map quite as well as the simplified state-by-state maps do. For example, many urban areas that are "blue" politically are likely to turn out to be "red" in terms of Federal Aid per tax dollar. Think of certain counties in D.C., or Cincinatti, or Detroit, and I think you can see what I mean.
Thus, it is probably wrong to make the blanket statement that "red" voters are feeding at the federal trough and "blue" voters are supplying the feed. Furthermore, I think it is fundamentally contrary to our progressive beliefs to even be making this point, true or false. Doing so implies a belief that people (or states) should keep the money they earn, which sounds a lot like what the Republicans want. Or it implies that people in red states who receive more federal aid are too dumb or misinformed to vote in their best interests, which I find condescending and unconstructive to the political debate.
So what are we to do? The fact still remains that many "red", often rural, communities take in more funding than they give to the government. I think we need to look at why these states are voting the way that they are and address those issues. I'm not an expert on this by a long shot (many of you have already figured that out on your own ;-D) but I can think of two reasons that red staters could reasonably believe they are voting in their own best interests, despite (or because of) the increased Federal Aid they receive:
- One reason has to do with the other side of Federal Aid, the appropriations for agriculture and transportation and other projects, which these states receive in larger amounts (relative to population) than other states. In some cases it may be justified because many of these states have large agricultural economies as well as large land masses (but relatively small populations), unlike the Northeastern states. But more importantly these types of appropriations are controlled by members of Congress who work relentlessly to funnel funds into their home states. Thus, when voters in these states vote Republican, in some ways they are voting in their interests. Alaska is a prime example of this dynamic at work, with the state seeing dramatic increases in per capita federal aid due in part to the efforts of their (Republican) representatives in Congress.
- The other reason brings us back to entitlement funding. Is it really so contrary to their best interests to be voting Republican, even as they pull in Federal funding for programs like Medicare and Social Security? You and I would say "yes", but we must remember that for years now the Republican party has been pushing the idea that these programs are "broken" and need to be reformed. Sadly, Democrats have been all to happy to go along with this (although they propose alternate solutions, of course). And although liberals find the idea of privatizing healthcare and pensions horrifying, to voters in rural areas the idea of transferring control of their money away from the government and into "private" accounts is highly seductive, due to their ingrained distrust of government. So, again, these people are voting in what they believe to be their own best interests and only time will tell if they are wrong, as most of you and I believe they are.
In terms of how to address these issues, I really don't have much in the way of solutions. One way to combat issue #1 would be for the Democrats in Congress to try and change how appropriations bills are handled and, specifically, the amount of pork that Republicans are inserting into bills in order to benefit their home states.
Josh Marshall has been talking about this lately and offers a solution whereby bills would be subject to public review for three days prior to coming to a vote. On a pure PR front, the Democrats need to be much more vocal about the spending priorities of the Republican Congress.
In terms of issue #2, the Democrats have shot themselves in the foot by conceding that certain entitlement programs are broken. The issue either needs to be reframed or the Democrats need to propose credible alternatives to the Republicans' proposals that will appeal to the independant, anti-government voters of the rural "red" communities. Again, I don't know what these alternatives are, but I do feel that we haven't found them or haven't communicated them effectively enough to win.
Thanks for your time; you may now commence ripping my argument to shreds :)