[Hermann the Cherusker]

Some would say, 'Oh, poor Alabama. It's cut off from the wealth infusion that it gets from New York and California,' " said Lawrence O'Donnell, a veteran Democratic insider and now senior political analyst at MSNBC. "But the more this political condition goes on at the presidential level of the red and blue states, the more you're testing the inclination of the blue states to say, 'So what?' "

Well, we've tried cutting their taxes, but their Senators voted it down.

The notion of a wealth transfer from blue to red is because when the Federal Government makes purchases, it must do so in places that actually produce something tangible (that certainly wouldn't be NY, NJ, CT, VT, HI, DC, MD, or MA), while defense activites are credited to those states that host military bases - mostly red states. On the other hand, lots of corporations are incorporated in DE and NY, so they get credit for corporate taxes not really earned there. And the choice of large numbers of wealthy people to live in NY, LA, SF, BOS, CHI, NJ, and CT is the other reason they pay an excess of taxes, not because they are more productive.

[steve-b]

Basically, the blue states are taxed to pay out subsidies (farm welfare, roads which cannot be supported by local population density) to the red states.