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To: Jim McMannis who wrote (594390)	11/28/2010 4:48:10 PM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1582681

The Most Socialist States in America Published: Friday, 26 Nov 2010 By: Greg Bocquet, MainStreet When the Democratic Party took over the presidency and both houses of Congress in 2008, conservatives were quick to warn their supporters of a coming era of socialism led by President Barack Obama. Indeed, that message was a constant in the debate over the health care reform bill as well as the Congressional midterm elections, when Tea Party conservatives made taxation a rallying cry for frustrated Americans. As the narrative of the country’s purported move toward socialism persists, MainStreet decided to evaluate which states were the most and least socialist, to get a picture of how diverse the country is in how states manage their finances. What is 'Socialist,' Anyway? To evaluate the degree to which different states manifest socialist principles, we started from the core definition of socialism as a form of government in which the state owns the means of production and allocates resources to its citizens at its discretion. In other words, a purely socialist state is one in which the state is responsible for 100% of economic output and spends all of it on social programs. Since no part of the U.S. can be considered purely socialist, we measured total expenditures as a proportion of total economic output to compare the size of the public sector in each state. Using recently released 2009 state gross domestic product figures from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis and total state expenditures for fiscal year 2009 from the most recent report of the National Association of State Budget Officers, we have come up with the 10 most socialist states in America. Read on; the results may surprise you. (Or jump to — Alaska?!) 10. Rhode Island Gross Domestic Product (2009): $47,837,000,000 Total State Expenditures (FY 2009): $7,587,000,000 Expenditures as Proportion of GDP: 15.9% On the list of most socialist states, tiny Rhode Island takes the 10th spot. Progressive on many social questions (the state was the second to abolish the death penalty, and was the third to legalize marijuana for medicinal purposes), its residents have voted for Democrats in eight of the last nine presidential elections. Economically, Rhode Island continually ranks among the states with the highest tax rates. Its property taxes, sales tax and income taxes are all above the respective national averages, not surprising for the 10th most socialist state on our list. 9. Hawaii Gross Domestic Product (2009): $66,431,000,000 Total State Expenditures (FY 2009): $11,822,000,000 Expenditures as Proportion of GDP: 17.8% 8. Arkansas Gross Domestic Product (2009): $101,818,000,000 Total State Expenditures (FY 2009): $18,403,000,000 Expenditures as Proportion of GDP: 18.1% 7. Wyoming Gross Domestic Product (2009): $37,544,000,000 Total State Expenditures (FY 2009): $7,123,000,000 Expenditures as Proportion of GDP: 19.0% 6. Mississippi Gross Domestic Product (2009): $95,905,000,000 Total State Expenditures (FY 2009): $19,380,000,000 Expenditures as Proportion of GDP: 20.2% 5. New Mexico Gross Domestic Product (2009): $74,801,000,000 Total State Expenditures (FY 2009): $15,455,000,000 Expenditures as Proportion of GDP: 20.7% 4. Vermont Gross Domestic Product (2009): $25,438,000,000 Total State Expenditures (FY 2009): $5,341,000,000 Expenditures as Proportion of GDP: 21.0% 3. Alabama Gross Domestic Product (2009): $169,856,000,000 Total State Expenditures (FY 2009): $46,558,000,000 Expenditures as Proportion of GDP: 27.4% 2. Alaska Gross Domestic Product (2009): $45,709,000,000 Total State Expenditures (FY 2009): $14,315,000,000 Expenditures as Proportion of GDP: 31.3% 1. West Virginia Gross Domestic Product (2009): $63,344,000,000 Total State Expenditures (FY 2009): $20,362,000,000 Expenditures as Proportion of GDP: 32.1% Despite the fact that Republicans won two out of three House seats in the 2010 midterm elections, West Virginia has been a Democratic state for most of its existence. In fact, Congress’s longest-serving member ever was Robert Byrd, the West Virginia Democrat who, at the time of his death last year, had represented the state for 57 years. On the state level, four of the past five governors have come from the Democratic Party, which could explain how the state’s expenditures have come to account for 32.1% of total output. - Greg Bocquet is a writer for MainStreet, part of TheStreet Network. cnbc.com

To: Jim McMannis who wrote (594390)	11/28/2010 7:16:55 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1582681

The California Republican Party is dead by Dante Atkins Sun Nov 28, 2010 at 02:00:05 PM PST Over at Calitics, my fellow California progressives had been saying it for years: The California Republican Party had no future. It was simple math; at a time when younger voters were becoming increasingly progressive and non-white populations were becoming a larger and larger share of the electorate, a party whose base consisted increasingly of older, white voters would become increasingly marginalized--through demographics alone, if not by ideology. Yes, the Republicans made large gains in the recent midterm elections--fueled by a combination of disaffected Democrats, soured independents and a highly motivated conservative base that sincerely believes that Barack Obama is not only responsible for the nation's economic woes, but is also a communist Kenyan Muslim. But while the GOP's gains were comparable in numbers to the 1994 sweep that ushered in the era of Speaker Gingrich, there are significant differences. Most notable is that in 1994, the GOP's gains could be considered the culmination of a gradual shift in the nation's ideology, as the party's gains were relatively evenly distributed across the country. 2010's wave, however, could hardly be considered such a shift, as it followed immediately upon two Democratic wave years. But perhaps more importantly, those gains were concentrated in areas with a particular demographic profile: older, white and working-class. And while the GOP celebrates its gains, these results should actually be the cause of some degree of alarm--especially when combined with the results from California. Republicans made sweeping gains in Congress, but also in legislative seats and governorships across the country. In California, however? No such luck. No victories in any of the statewide offices. No Congressional seats. No Senate pickup. In fact, Democrats even managed to pick up a seat in the State Assembly. A chief reason why was the prominence of the Latino electorate, which voted strongly for the Democratic ticket in large part because of Meg Whitman's issues with her undocumented housekeeper and her opposition to California's DREAM Act: One answer lies in the voting patterns of non-whites, who overwhelmingly supported the Democratic ticket. While Democrats weren't the most effective at the national level in inspiring their traditional minority constituencies to come to the ballot box anywhere else, it was a different story in California, where Latinos comprised a whopping 22 percent of the state's electorate, according to the Los Angeles Times. And they voted overwhelmingly Democratic, supporting Brown over Whitman by a margin of 55 points. Whitman said she wanted to be "tough as nails" on undocumented immigrants; her campaign chair was Pete Wilson, who is still persona non grata because of the odious Proposition 187, which denied all public services to undocumented immigrants; she gave a callous and condescending debate response to an undocumented student who inquired as to her position on the DREAM act; and if that weren't enough, the scandal regarding the treatment of her undocumented housekeeper whom she unceremoniously fired after many years of service perpetuated the existing narrative about Whitman's hostility to Latinos, and towards lower-income people in general. As Robert Cruickshank noted shortly after the election, Whitman defeated Brown among white voters, and among voters age 65 and older. A political party looking for long-term viability would realize that this is not a formula for long-term success in a state--or a country--where non-white voters are becoming an increasingly large share of the electorate. Republicans of all stripes are coming to this realization: the California Republican Party is dead. After all, if you're a Republican and you can't win in the environment that led up to 2010, you probably can't win at all. The question is how to revive it--and this is already leading to a fascinating civil war, as exemplied in Los Angeles Times columnist George Skelton's latest column. The conservative wing of the party is hankering for a retreat from the so-called "moderates" such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Meg Whitman and outgoing Lieutenant Governor Abel Maldonado, who have defined the Party in recent years: I called Jon Fleischman, a conservative blogger — Flash Report — and Southern California vice chairman of the Republican Party. "Political parties are defined by office-holders and candidates," he says. "We have been defined by Arnold Schwarzenegger and Meg Whitman. And I don't know that anyone could tell you what the California Republican Party stands for anymore.... "We've watched our brand name get ruined and the party destroyed by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Hopefully we can develop a better brand once he's gone." The problem, of course, is that going hard-right--especially on social issues and immigration--is substantially what cost the GOP the election in California in the first place, because an increasingly Democratic and increasingly non-white electorate is not ready to accept those positions and there is no "silent majority" out there just waiting to be activated by the second coming of Ronald Reagan. And the establishment wing of the party recognizes this as well: *"The Republican Party is now a regional party, not a statewide party, mainly because Republicans no longer are capable of getting people of color to vote for them,"* says Allan Hoffenblum, a former GOP consultant who publishes the Target Book, which handicaps legislative races. Everyone who isn't in denial knows what the California GOP must do to survive: Drop the demagoguery about illegal immigrants because it scares off the fast-growing Latino electorate. The main problem, of course? The establishment wing of the GOP no longer has a choice in the matter; the Tea Party and the conservative wing are uniting to take stances that will ultimately result in the total marginalization of the Republican Party and of conservative candidates in California. Arizona's draconian and unconstitutional immigration law, SB1070, was a massive motivator of the Latino electorate across the entire West--a factor which aided California's statewide sweep for Democrats, but also ensured that endangered Democrats in other states, such as Harry Reid in Nevada, hung on to win despite a climate in which they might not have been reelected under other circumstances. Some California conservatives haven't learned from that experience, and are seeking to replicate it. Unlike in Arizona, a law similar to SB1070 could never pass through the heavily Democratic legislature--but California has a popular referendum process, and some Tea Party groups are spearheading an effort to place a similar law on the ballot in California. If they do qualify it in time, the timing couldn't be worse for the GOP, as the initiative would likely appear on the 2012 Presidential Primary ballot. This, in turn, would force the Republican candidates into the same difficult position that they found themselves in over SB1070 earlier: support it to bolster their conservative credentials among the older white male Republican electorate and damage their popularity among the Latinos that they would need to win key Western battleground states, or oppose it to blunt the general election attacks while enraging the Tea Party primary voters. It's a stark choice. Of course, if Rep. King gets his way and makes even more noise about his unconstitutional bill to overturn the 14th Amendment, it may be a moot point.