Givers and Takers
By DANIEL H. PINK
WASHINGTON
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 Washington, 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 Washington. 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.
Posted by P6 at January 30, 2004 08:35 AM
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Comments
CalPundit had a lovely map illustrating this the other month.
Posted by Al-Muhajabah at January 30, 2004 03:57 PMIt wasn't easy finding the actual report, but it is here.
Of course, you know that my solution is to not take the dollar from the state to start with.
Posted by Phelps at January 30, 2004 06:51 PMHmm. Looks like most of the federal budget goes to missile silos and reverse engineering alien spacecraft in ND and NM respectively.
Anyway, as a lot of money goes to national defense, aren't these numbers a bit distorted, and isn't a large part of the money redistributed by companies like boeing over subcontractors all over the US?
Posted by dof at February 1, 2004 06:17 AMHey, DoF, no fair trying to actually think about the numbers. You are supposed to just say, "damned hypocritical rich white Republicans!" and move on.
Posted by Phelps at February 2, 2004 06:19 PMPhelps, it would really be nice if you made some effort researching the matter. I actually paid a visit to the Heritage Foundation to see if they would attempt to rebut the claims of that map (see if you have any more luck than I did). I also went to the Tax Foundation, a site run by a bunch of commies who want to cut your taxes. Here is a link to their methodology. When you're done, I have tons of additional evidence that the GOP tends to allocate vastly more pork to its own districts/contituencies than do Democrats.
Posted by James R MacLean at February 3, 2004 03:57 PMDoF:
Are you suggesting that money given to large corporations shouldn't be counted to the degree it's spent elsewhere?
I wonder what the impact on GDP figures would be if that were the practice.
Posted by P6 at February 3, 2004 05:04 PMI did make some effort. I was the one that linked to the report, you know. The report (and your admonitions) fail to account for what DoF suggested -- that a significant portion of the budget goes to defense, and a significant portion of the defense budget goes to "flyover"/Republican states. There are lots of reasons why military bases and leftist populations don't go together.
As far as the GOP allocating more pork, I don't doubt that. The Republicrat Party is good at that on both sides of the line.
Posted by Phelps at February 3, 2004 05:08 PM
Oh, it can be counted alright, indeed, I insist it is counted to the last cent.
I was just pointing out that you can't infer all that much from those numbers, and money payed to an individual in a state is more likely to remain in that state than money payed to a large defense contractor in that state.
And anyway, if you want to talk about transfers between states, it makes more sense to use absolute numbers.
A state that pays 1 B$ in federal taxes and receives 1.2 B$ in federal money looks better in relative terms than a state
that pays 200 M$ and receives 250 M$, ( a ratio of 1.2 vs. 1.25) but in reality it is subsidized 4 times as much.
(You may notice I used a very libertarian tax rate that may not correspond to actual tax rates in effect)
Posted by dof at February 4, 2004 04:35 AMI was just pointing out that you can't infer all that much from those numbers, and money payed to an individual in a state is more likely to remain in that state than money payed to a large defense contractor in that state.
Ah. So it's your question, not the numbers, that is misleading.
Posted by P6 at February 4, 2004 09:21 AMAh. So it's your question, not the numbers, that is misleading.
No. It is the blanket assertion based on insufficient data that is misleading. It is just as misleading as saying that since a higher percentage of black men are felons than white men, then black men must be more criminal. There are other factors at work.
Posted by Phelps at February 4, 2004 04:26 PMThere's a blanket assertion made with insufficient proof somewhere on this page?
Posted by P6 at February 5, 2004 12:42 AMThere's a blanket assertion made with insufficient proof somewhere on this page?
Yup.
.Republicans seem to have become the new welfare party � their constituents live off tax dollars paid by people who vote Democratic.Posted by Phelps at February 5, 2004 07:52 PM