----social programmes----
Another clue, blimey!
-Dan
Posted on 11/12/2004 7:40:41 AM PST by BlueStateLiberal
Clearly, those of us in the thinking part of the country are at odds with the red(neck) states. Why not formalise the irreconcilable differences between us by having a go at sovereignty? That way, we can rejoin the civilised world, and you can create your Taliban-style theocracy that you so obviously desire.
Do you have any facts to back these (and your other statements) up, or are you nothing more than hot air and ad homs?
"That way, we can rejoin the civilised perverted world, and you can create your Taliban-style theocracy Christian-with-a-moral-compass Representative Democracy that you so obviously desire."
There.
I fixed it.
Another clue, blimey!
-Dan
Hard keeping up, sorry.
From the Boston Herald:
To an investor it must come as a surprise to hear all this talk of the ``red'' states, which voted Republican last week, as the ``real America'' or the ``heartland.''
And to hear the blue states described as a ``coastal fringe.''
One wonders if the pundits using these phrases have taken a look recently at the stock market.
Or the economy.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average represents the leading companies of U.S. industry across all the major sectors.
At the risk of fueling further talk of secession: Of the Dow's 30 members, 23 are from blue states.
They include ALCOA, American Express, Boeing, McDondald's, General Motors, Intel, 3M, Microsoft and Disney. Some fringe.
Maybe in a modern economy it doesn't make much sense to look at where companies are based. These organizations operate and sell across America and around the world.
Instead we can look at state output or per-capita productivity.
Trouble is, the results are similar.
The blue states remain the engine of the American economy. All in all they produced $5.4 trillion in goods and services in 2001, the last year for which reliable data is available.
That's about $700 billion more than the red states, according to the government's Bureau of Economic Analysis.
It's true that populations are booming across the south and the west. People and companies have moved there in pursuit of cheaper land, lower costs, and fresh opportunities.
You might expect that, as a result, their economies are growing much faster, too. Instead, from 1994 through 2001, the two economies expanded in line with one another. Despite the population shift.
Per person, blue America outproduces red America by 21 percent. That's $6,700 per person per year.
Thinking of secession? Think of the tax cut.
Under current federal tax and spending, there is a massive net outflow of money from the blue to the red states. The blue states pay much more in federal income tax, and receive far less in Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security - not to mention farm subsidies, highway funds and infrastructure grants.
``The tax money is coming from the blue states, but it's being allocated to the red states because they have lower than average incomes,'' agreed Scott Moody, senior economist at the Tax Foundation think-tank.
The bottom line: In 2002, according to a Tax Foundation study, the transfers amounted to $136 billion.
Economists say that hasn't changed much over recent decades.
For a family of four in blue America, from Portland, Maine to Portland, Oregon, those transfers work out around $3,900 a year.
A tax cut that big would certainly ease the pain of having to show your passport to visit Florida.
Are the red states quite sure they want to roll back big government?
With only a few exceptions, such as Nevada and Colorado, they are all on federal support.
For that matter, are New Englanders being quite so smart in trying to prevent federal budget cuts? Even super-liberals might start to see the advantage of, say, state spending instead.
New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Connectictut are among the biggest net contributors, per person, to the federal government. The costs of the Big Dig notwithstanding.
Maybe this doesn't matter. But it's something to bear in mind - especially if your brother-in-law from Tallahassee tries to give you grief over Thanksgiving dinner
LOL Oh good answer to the questions for facts.
BTW....guess you've been too busy being depressed and hating to notice that WMD was found this week
This must be the Rat talking points for today. Cokie Roberts called us Ayatollah's waging jihad on Arlen Specter today. Then you mention Taliban. What is it about God and morals that frightens you liberals so much?
Never were? So, I suppose these children are just having a nap in the afternoon sun, then?
Why the h*ll would you set your spell check to UK english??
BTW...........are you on welfare? are you one of the leeches?
OK, so that makes you a pretentious twit. Did "have a go" come out of your UK phrase checker, too? Nice try, troll.
AWWW. Don't go away mad. Just go away.
The "smart people" who are "providing" for the Red States?!
Bull-friggin-crap
I was born (sorry to admit it) in Massa-Two_sh!ts and *no one* spells in the British/Canadian manner there.
BlueStateLiberal
Since Nov 12, 2004
Blue state liberal = ignorant dumb ass
You bastards could not make it without us.
Case: You voted for the coke-sniffing warmongering moron who occupies the Oval Office, not us. He's not my President.
1. Coke sniffing = Bubba
2. (a kinder, gentler) warmongerer = Bubba
3. moron = Bubba
He's not my President, either.
Some of us mouth-breathing Red-Staters ALREADY KNOW HOW TO SPELL and DO NOT NEED ANY DAMNED CHECKER. Keep practising, guv'nor!
-Dan
How interesting.
We're stupid red-necks but we won.
What does that make the "blue states" people?
Besides selfish and intolerant perverts?
Isn't it funny when they are campaigning the Republicans are the party of the Rich....but now when they've lost the Red states are the "welfare" states being carried by the Socialists? Funny how that works.
BWAHAHAHAHA You think paying taxes gives you a "safety net"? Please! Paying taxes into a BLOATED burocracy does nothing but simply that: Creates a BLOATED BEUROCRACY! Name me one social program that has had ANY success at all.
Welfare? Have you seen the abuse that occurs quite REGULARLY in that system lately? With perfectly able people driving around in SUV's and using cell phones?
Social Security? Is that system "self sustaining" as FDR promised us, or has it become yet AGAIN, another in a long list of programs that now drain money from REAL "producers", and give it to lazy@$$, NON-producing dolts like you.
I could go on and on, but it's obvious we have a fundamental disagreement. You want to run to the government to solve every problem, I want to encourage INDIVIDUALITY, and require people to solve their OWN problems, if they're able. (which most who are on these "social programs" CAN solve their own problems, they just don't have any motivation to, because they're a SLAVE to the STATE)
I guess that makes them stupider than us " slack jawed yokels"
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