Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Katelew who wrote (147668)	10/20/2010 8:17:23 PM
From: Sam	Respond to of 541982

At any rate, I think Snowshoe hit on it. The thing that really skews those numbers you and Allen throw out is the difference in population from one state to the next. Like Alaska, Arkansas is a low population state that also has several federally maintained projects in it. Now that I've thought about it, I think most of ours have to do with water management of some kind. Kate, First of all: Yes, population skews the numbers. That is an important part of the real point--low population states still get two Senators who have a disproportionate amount of power relative to the number of people that they serve. This has always been true, and is an important reason why low population states get more money per capita than high population states--this despite the fact that high population states (a) tend to pay more into federal coffers, and (b) have a greater need for money than the lower population states. Second, yes, many federal projects in western states have to do with water. In other states, they also have to do with mining, with farming (especially with irrigation of course, more water), with lumber, with ranching/grazing, with parks. And it is also true that many people both in and out of the states where the projects are located benefit from them. But the biggest beneficiaries are the people who, e.g., get the water at a fraction of its true cost (ask farmers in the Central Valley of CA how much farming would be done without the water they get for irrigating their land which is in a desert), who get to graze their cattle on land for a fraction of cost, who get to cut trees on federal land and take the trees out on federally built roads and pay next to nothing for the privilege--and I am willing to wager that most of these people are Republicans who are opposed to any tax hikes ever, who think that they are minimalists in terms what government should do, who think that anything other than protecting the sanctity of contract and defense in its many forms is an illegitimate use of government. They take their dams and water completely for granted. After all, they would claim, they work hard on their farms and in their mines (well, never mind that it is the migrant workers who really hard in the fields, you know what I mean, they work hard at the brain work that they do).

To: Katelew who wrote (147668)	10/20/2010 8:27:21 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Respond to of 541982

Without looking it up, we have 7 Nat. Parks, umpteen Nat. forests and monuments, the federal water project, half an umpteen bases, 2 national radiation labs, more reservations than Ark has Cherokees,( almost), maybe more miles of levees in the Delta than in Ark, blah blah blah. It's the poverty level in those states, not whatever projects you have. Salaries, grants, research grants, handouts, SS checks, defense contracts, farm subsidies, blah blah in Ark total whatever it was, ?1.41, for every dollar collected. All those total 78 cents here.

To: Katelew who wrote (147668)	10/20/2010 10:37:41 PM
From: Cogito	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541982

For the record, I am not one who believes there is something fundamentally unfair about some states paying more in federal taxes than they receive in federal funding. I think that's just the way it is. Nothing to complain about. I only mentioned it because you were talking about the potential for California to receive more federal funding as if it was an undeserved handout. If you're not going to complain when we pay all those taxes and your state (among others) receives the benefit of that, I don't think you should complain when my state needs some help. Remember that one of the big reasons we have a budget crisis here is that Prop 13 lowered property taxes dramatically in the 70s, and also made it impossible to change the rates at all without a 2/3rds vote in the legislature.