read the stats and weep --- 78% of " taker" states are Republican.
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the Study under discussion :
http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxingspending.html
(see stats on what your state recieves in fed $ for every $ it pays )
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NYT link :
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/30/opinion/30PINK.html?ei=5062&en=e14192349f22
db17&
ex=1076043600&partner=GOOGLE&pagewanted=print&position=
January 30, 2004
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Givers and Takers
By DANIEL H. PINK
WA****NGTON
Each of the Democratic candidates vying to replace George W. Bush has a
serious
electability problem. The problem has nothing to do with their biographies
or
temperaments - and everything to do with a significant, but unnoticed,
structural
divide in American presidential politics.
Each year, the Tax Foundation, a nonprofit research group, crunches
numbers
from
the Census Bureau to produce an intriguing figure: how much each state
receives in
federal spending for every dollar it pays in federal taxes.
For example, according to the most recent data, for every dollar the
average
North
Dakotan paid in federal taxes, he received $2.07 in federal benefits. But
while
someone in Fargo was doubling his money, his counterpart in neighboring
Minnesota
was being shortchanged. For every dollar Minnesotans sent to Wa****ngton,
only
77
cents in federal spending flowed back to the state.
Using the Tax Foundation's analysis, it's possible to group the 50 states
into two
categories: Givers and Takers. Giver states get back less than a dollar in
spending for every dollar they contribute to federal coffers. Taker states
pocket
more than a dollar for every tax dollar they send to Wa****ngton.
Thirty-three
states are Takers; 16 are Givers. (One state, Indiana, has a perfect
one-to-
one
ratio of taxes paid and spending received. As seat of the federal
government,
the
District of Columbia has no choice but to be a Taker, and is therefore not
comparable to the 50 states in this regard.)
The Democrats' electability predicament comes into focus when you compare
the
map
of Giver and Taker states with the well-worn electoral map of red
(Republican) and
blue (Democrat) states. You might expect that in the 2000 presidential
election,
Republicans, the party of low taxes and limited government, would have
carried the
Giver states - while Democrats, the party of wild spending and wooly
bureaucracy,
would have appealed to the Taker states. But it was the reverse. George W.
Bush
was the candidate of the Taker states. Al Gore was the candidate of the
Giver
states.
Consider:
78 percent of Mr. Bush's electoral votes came from Taker states.
76 percent of Mr. Gore's electoral votes came from Giver states.
Of the 33 Taker states, Mr. Bush carried 25.
Of the 16 Giver states, Mr. Gore carried 12.
Juxtaposing these maps provides a new perspective on the political
landscape.
(Interactive moment: Color in the blue and red states - then you'll get
the
full
picture.) Republicans seem to have become the new welfare party - their
constituents live off tax dollars paid by people who vote Democratic. Of
course,
not all federal spending is wasteful. But Republicans are having their
****k
and
eating it too. Voters in red states like Idaho, Montana and Wyoming are
some
of
the country's fiercest critics of government, yet they're also among the
biggest
recipients of federal largess. Meanwhile, Democratic voters in the coastal
blue
states - the ones who are often ****trayed as ****ftless moochers - are left
to
carry the load.
For President Bush, this invisible income redistribution system is a boon.
He
can
encourage his sup****ters to see themselves as Givers, yet reward them with
federal
spending in excess of their contribution - and send the bill to those who
voted
for his opponent. It's shrewd politics.
And it puts the eventual Democratic presidential nominee in a bind, should
he
try
to rally those who believe they aren't getting a fair shake from
Wa****ngton.
If
the Democratic candidate won all 16 Giver states plus the District of
Columbia in
November, he'd collect only 254 electoral votes, short of the majority
needed
to
capture the White House. The electoral votes of all the Taker states, by
contrast,
add up to 273 - two more than Mr. Bush won in 2000.
Is there a way out for Democrats? Maybe not. With Republicans holding the
purse
strings, it's the Democrats who are being taken.
Daniel H. Pink, the author of "Free Agent Nation," was the chief
speechwriter
for
Vice President Al Gore from 1995 to 1997.
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