Red vs. Blue

Atrios points out that Red states are stealing from blue states. Inspired by MB's great work here , I went to the full report Atrios cites, added some color-coding, and made some graphs. While the subsidies are much larger in the Red states (those that in principle dislike government subsidizing anything), they are not quite as bad as I thought. I suspect the explanation that our system is designed to favor smaller states by giving them disproportionate representation in the Senate (two per state) and the Electoral College (1 per member of Congress, so a three vote minimum). Still, the citizens of conservative states don't seem particularly opposed to federal largesse (It's always fun to listen to Ted Stevens of Alaska--a top beneficiary--rant and rave against the govenment).

It looks like there's something funny in the graphs because you might expect that everything has to average out to one. My guess is that they are using income taxes paid by each state and transfers made to each state. Presumably, this reflects deficit spending and other sources of revenue. Overall, a slight majority of Blue states get less than $1.00 returned back per dollar put in, while the vast majority (27/31) of Red states break even or better. (Click on each image to get the full size version).

AB (X-posted at Angry Bear)

    

UPDATE: Oops, Gore won Oregon. Luckily, since Oregon is dollar for dollar even, it doesn't really change the basic point (Thanks to Minder in comments).

I Didn't Think this Would Make it Through the Senate

From the NYT, among others: "Republicans Woo Moderates on Tax Cut". It looks like the Republicans have 50 votes in the Senate, with Dick Cheney holding the tie-breaking 51^st, for an amendment to replace the Grassley-proposed and Senate Finance Committee approved version of the dividend tax cut. Zell Miller voted for the tax cut (as I predicted here), and Democrat Ben Nelson of Nebraska (Red State) also will vote 'aye'. Voinovich gave in to pressure and agreed to vote yes, stating "[this plan] gets the biggest bang for the buck that we can possibly get" (rather Panglossian).

Technically, Voinovich did not reverse course as the plan comes in at $350b. Of course it only achieved that number via the dishonest accounting of sunset provisions: 1/2 of dividend income is excluded from taxation in 2004, followed by 100% of dividend income from 2005-2007, at which point the exclusion will in principle sunset (so the 10-year cost of the tax cut uses the assumption that dividends will be taxed from 2008 onward). Still, this plan will cost much more in lost revenues than Grassley's. How did they add this cut and still keep under $350b?

The more robust dividend plan shaves tax cuts for married couples and small businesses to make room for more dividend breaks in the bill, which cuts taxes $350 billion over the coming decade [according to Sen. Don Nickles (R-Ok)].

Fantastic!

Olympia Snow held her ground ("My position hasn't changed"). And the story didn't say, but it looks like Chafee and Collins also stood firm (48 Democrats+Jeffords+Chafee+Collins+Snow-Miller-Nelson = 50).

AB

X-Posted at Angry Bear.

And the Red states get bluer over increasing unemployment

Over the weekend on the Daily Kos, RonK, filling in for Kos, took a look at the strengths and weaknesses of the 2004 Senate races, and other related state politics concerns for Democrats. Within comments, I pointed to the graph I drew last month, looking at how specific state unemployment levels could conceivably impact a close Presidential election.

I received an update via email from the BLS last week, but didn't have time to run new numbers. My sense, though, was that unemployment numbers had increased in nearly all the battleground states.

I was correct. Only in Pennsylvania and West Virginia did the local unemployment rate decrease. Last month, only two states had seen an increase of 2.0% or more; this month, the number increased to seven.

Ron mentioned he'd like to see the numbers for the "hard" Red states. Always willing to crunch more unemployment numbers, here they are:

Looks like Bush has some explaining to do back in his home state.

[x-posted at Wampum]