Red States Blue States?

Well I never it comes from democrat states and goes to Republican states.

I’ve been seeing that argument for years , not just the many times you’ve introduced it into a debate. Have you ever looked into the detail? Ever actually thought about it? Of course you haven’t and I’ve simply treated it as yet another boring talking point, but I guess I have to now …..

Aside from anything else, to accept the argument you’d have to accept that the residents are willingly voting to destroy their own benefits, which would be wonderful but unlikely.

In any case it’s crap because it relies on Presidential elections only to define “Red” from “Blue” states, and is stuck with the 2004 results. But looking at the list of “Red” states it makes no sense to just have that definition. A state might vote GOP for president while being solidly Democrat at the Federal Senate and House levels.

You do realise that the basic definition itself has only been around since about 2000 and has largely only been applied to Presidential elections? To use this as a base going forward for sophisticated tax and spending analysis is to strangle the argument at birth.

For example, looking at the list of “Welfare” states I see New Mexico, West Virginia, New Hampshire, Nevada, and Colorado. New Mexico, Virginia, and New Hampshire, which have all been evenly split on presidential candidates for the last thirty years. How can they be “Red” or “Blue”. On the bottom end of the welfare scale – the “good guys” in your endlessly Manichean world – I see Nevada and Colorado, who both voted for both Bush 43 wins. New Hampshire voted for Kerry, Obama, and Obama – but they’ve only elected one Democrat Senator since 1960! How the fuck can you call North Dakota, Louisiana, and West Virginia “Red” states when they’ve voted overwhelmingly Democratic for the past thirty years? South Dakota and New Mexico fail the same test. West Virginia finally got a Republican senator in 2014 – the first since 1959!

Similarly with Governors and state Houes and Senates, the GOP growth in that area being very recent. Are you suggesting that the voters turfed out Democrats who were on the verge of making huge spending cuts and cut down on their Federal largesse?

And this is before we even start down the track of a detailed examination of the tax and spending underlying those figures which – given this asshole’s partisan take on things – is probably no more trustworthy than his “Red” vs “Blue” definition.

Mandatory spending (Medicare and Social Security – which can’t be touched legally) vs discretionary spending (which is mainly the military) is just for starters. You are aware of the millions of retirees who’ve fled to the Sunbelt states from the colder Northern ones no?

And again, if you actually think about this from a higher perspective – if the analysis was true, would the Democrats not have done everything they could to correct this imbalance when they held the purse strings from 2007-2011 and when, according to this article, it would cost them nothing electorally as they punished their enemies and rewarded their friends. The fact that they did nothing is yet another indicator that it’s a bullshit talking point of Democratic activists.