The rich are waging class warfare on the poor
- Thread starter failed_trad3r
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Exactly, these red state socialists have to be stopped.
For whatever reason, so-called "blue states" tend to be high-income areas that pay the vast majority of federal taxes. Some 84 percent of federal individual income taxesâwhich account for over 40 percent of federal revenueâare paid by the those in the top 25 percent of the income distribution. The majority of these taxpayers live in wealthy, urban, politically "blue" areas like New York, California, and Massachusetts.
http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/show/1397.html
I don't see it in terms of Red versus Blue - I see it in terms of fundamental fairness. The fact of the matter is that the Dems and the Repubs buy off their respective constituents with tax breaks and tax loopholes - both parties are whores in that respect. The Democratic Party had complete control of all three branches of the Federal government including at one point a supermajority. The Dems could have changed tax rates, tax deductions, loopholes, whatever they wanted. If tax rates are the Dems number one hotbutton issue - why did they do nothing about it when they had complete and unchallenged power to do so ? BTW, supermajority means veto-proof.
First, the study is from Tax Foundation who advocate for lower taxes and are routinely supported by fiscal Conservatives.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_Foundation
Second, what eats up Federal Funds in these red states are not the poor but the older more conservative retirees who tend to vote Republican.
Another report from Tax Foundation
Most federal money is spent on retirees, especially Social Security and Medicare. And of course the elderly have been moving south and west for years. Every large blue state saw its elderly population depleted during the late 1990s.
http://www.taxfoundation.org/commentary/show/75.html
And the Democratic Party says that these same individuals in these same States need to be paying MORE. And your arguement does not hold water in terms of taxpayer political bias - in fact, the majority of the Democratic party constituency, those who identify their income levels during polling pays no tax and in fact is on the receiving end of taxpayer largess.
The "older/more conservative retirees" are ones who actually paid into SS during their entire working lifetimes. The poor who receive SSI, state welfare, Medicaid, etc. often pay little or nothing into the system. Does your study account for that? How much economic benefit did these elderly do society by paying taxes and (in some cases) employing poorer people over their working lifetimes?
I'm not a fan of SS anyway. It's a ponzi scheme by nature. The early recipients came out much better than later ones. There's no way around that. But blame that on FDR, not Red State elderly people who were forced into the system.
Why have the elderly moved South and West? Warm weather and high taxes on the East and Left coasts. Again, that does nothing to prove the studies' points.
The real question, as Bone asked, is "what are the voting patterns of serial recipients of various gov't programs, who pay little or no taxes?" Until you answer that, Red State vs. Blue State is a red herring.
Those studies prey upon people with little insight on statistical, logical and economic fallacies. They fall apart once you ask the right questions.
But currently they are taking out much more than they paid into, in case of Medicare its 3 to 1 skewing the federal funding onto these Red states.
Even if they paid into it, they are getting far more benefits compared to what they put in.
See for yourself.
http://townhall.com/columnists/johnstossel/2009/05/20/the_medicare_ponzi_scheme
"The government spends around $6 on seniors for every dollar it spends on children, and yet the poverty rate among children is far higher,"
"There is $34 trillion sitting off the balance sheet, waiting for future generations to pay," Herzlinger said.
That's how much more Medicare money government has promised than it has budgeted. It's the price of about 30 Iraq Wars.
Actually the real question is the amount spent, not the number of people receiving aid, the amount spent on Medicare dwarfs any other kind of Federal spending.