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Author Topic:   Red State vs Blue State -- drawing battlelines?
RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


(3)
Message 1 of 37 (795055)
12-05-2016 12:42 PM


quote:
Under Trump, red states are finally going to be able to turn themselves into poor, unhealthy paradises
In 2004, the journalist and historian Thomas Frank wrote an insightful and prescient book, What’s the Matter With Kansas?", in which he tried to puzzle out why voters in his native state backed Republicans whose policies undermined their own economic interests.
Watching the apocalyptic response to Donald Trump's victory in the liberal precincts I inhabit, I’m struck by a similar quandary: Why are voters in states that pay a disproportionately large share of federal taxes, and benefit from a disproportionately small share of federal spending, so upset about the prospect of a cut in taxes and federal spending?
Data compiled by the Pew Charitable Trust found that 10 states that receive less than a dollar back for every dollar they send to Washington: Delaware, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, Connecticut, Illinois, Ohio, Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island. And here are the states that get more than $2 back for every $1 in taxes paid: Mississippi, New Mexico, West Virginia, Hawaii, South Carolina, Alabama, Maine, Montana, Alaska, Virginia, Arizona, Idaho, Kentucky and Vermont. You don’t have to be a political scientist to see the blue state/red state pattern here. Red state voters may talk a good game about small government and low taxes, but in reality they are socialist moochers.
Rather than wallowing in the hypocrisy of all this, however, Democrats should see the opportunity here an opportunity to turn the Republican program to their selfish advantage and create the kind of society where people look out for each other and business interests are not allowed to run roughshod over workers and consumers.
If these states want to maintain the Obamacare insurance exchanges, the low-income subsidies and the expansion of the Medicaid program, they can do that, just as Massachusetts did under Mitt Romney even before passage of the federal law. Their state insurance commissioners can also keep in place many of the Obamacare insurance regulations.
The additional state revenue could also be used to replace cuts in federal funding for public schools, or food stamps, or public transit subsidies. Given the existing imbalance between taxes paid and benefits received by most of these states, there should even be money left over to invest in public college and university systems that in recent years have suffered badly from a reduction in state support.
Curiously, I have felt for some time that the New England states with democrat control could form an alliance to provide a progressive agenda supported by state taxes, including universal health insurance, tuition free community college, and minimum living wage, mandatory overtime and family leave, etc. etc. (see About WFP - Working Families Party).
This would work by letting republicans cut taxes and programs so that they don't keep providing those disproportionately for the red states, and using that money saved for state\alliance programs.
They could also provide state banks that are credit unions and that provide offices in low income areas, allowing debit cards to be used for payday cashing.
Let the red state GOP controlled states turn themselves into 3rd world states, just not on my dime ... if you know what I mean ...
Enjoy
Edited by RAZD, : revised entirely to new post
Edited by RAZD, : .
Edited by RAZD, : ..

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RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


(2)
Message 2 of 37 (795062)
12-05-2016 2:37 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by RAZD
12-05-2016 12:42 PM


This could also spread state-by-state the way LGBT marriage and marijuana legalization is spreading.
The alliance could work by ensuring reciprocity between the member states and common laws in each state (much like the ALEC laws, just with a progressive agenda instead of the repressive republican one).
Don't complain -- lead.
Enjoy

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
RebelAmerican☆Zen☯Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
to share.


Join the effort to solve medical problems, AIDS/HIV, Cancer and more with Team EvC! (click)

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Admin
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(1)
Message 3 of 37 (795064)
12-05-2016 5:07 PM


Thread Moved from Proposed New Topics Forum
Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

  
xongsmith
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From: massachusetts US
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Member Rating: 6.8


(4)
Message 4 of 37 (795069)
12-05-2016 7:18 PM



- xongsmith, 5.7d

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 5 of 37 (795074)
12-05-2016 10:55 PM
Reply to: Message 4 by xongsmith
12-05-2016 7:18 PM


That's exactly how I feel about leftist policies. I'm all for splitting the nation myself, I'm tired of having to deal with all that. You deal with the people burning down the cities, they're your responsibility. You can have Obamacare, and all your socialist policies. Let's just amicably divide the country. Please.

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vimesey
Member
Posts: 1398
From: Birmingham, England
Joined: 09-21-2011


(1)
Message 6 of 37 (795086)
12-06-2016 3:51 AM
Reply to: Message 5 by Faith
12-05-2016 10:55 PM


Just for clarity as much as anything else, it's worth pointing out that very few liberals argue for socialism. At the heart of socialist philosophy, is the vital concept of the control of the means of production by the state. (Complete control - not just taxing profits or passing safety laws or giving workers rights). Socialism (or its close cousin, communism) are easy words to use to vilify the liberal side of things - in the same way that we vilify the right as being fascists from time to time.
It's rarely accurate though - the majority of liberals in my experience are more than content with a form of capitalism which seeks simply to curb obscene greed and obscene levels of wealth, and to create systems whereby we institutionalise fairness, support and general decency towards our fellow man.
I know that you do espouse principles of decency towards our fellow man Faith - I just don't believe it will happen widely enough if we leave it to individuals to do themselves. A liberal democracy does a massively better job of it. And for me, that's something we should aspire to.

Could there be any greater conceit, than for someone to believe that the universe has to be simple enough for them to be able to understand it ?

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 7 of 37 (795089)
12-06-2016 6:26 AM
Reply to: Message 6 by vimesey
12-06-2016 3:51 AM


I know that you do espouse principles of decency towards our fellow man Faith - I just don't believe it will happen widely enough if we leave it to individuals to do themselves. A liberal democracy does a massively better job of it. And for me, that's something we should aspire to.
I'm a sucker for hearing nice things about me at EvC so thanks for that. If Christianity still had the strength it used to have in the West then we COULD "leave it up to individuals" to take care of our fellow man, so I agree with you that unfortunately the way things are these days that's not going to happen. We've reverted to the paganism Christianity supplanted and a great many people seem very happy with that.
Paganism didn't care one whit for decency to their fellow man, leaving babies out to die of exposure, leaving the elderly out to die of exposure, regularly performing human sacrifice (yes, even the much-vaunted cultures of ancient Greece and Rome, though that knowledge is suppressed in our history books), and of course universally practicing slavery. All the concern for our fellow man comes from the Christianity that supplanted all that.
So with the marginalizing of Christianity the task of preserving that decency within the pagan worldview requires taxing everybody to death to support killing babies along with supporting the poor. It also goes with absurd misreadings of the Christian scriptures so that they are made to support tyrannical government oppression of individuals such as that Italian hotel owner in the name of charity, and calling a murderous totalitarian ideology a religion that deserves rights and freedoms.
\
Schizophrenia rules. Even dividing the country won't cure that, I know that. And I also know that even if Trump is all the best things he might conceivably be, there is no political solution to the problem of banishing the God who made the West great in the first place. Either we reinstate God or we go down according to Biblical prophecy to the finale spelled out in the Book of Revelation. The popular mindset obviously favors the latter. It's going to be a bumpy ride.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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NoNukes
Inactive Member


(1)
Message 8 of 37 (795090)
12-06-2016 6:39 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by RAZD
12-05-2016 12:42 PM


If these states want to maintain the Obamacare insurance exchanges, the low-income subsidies and the expansion of the Medicaid program, they can do that, just as Massachusetts did under Mitt Romney even before passage of the federal law. Their state insurance commissioners can also keep in place many of the Obamacare insurance regulations.
I'm a bit pessimistic about how that might work out.
1. I live in a GOP state (NC) which cannot figure out how to run a health care program within its borders. The only coherent policy is hating Obamacare. The only bright spot this past election was the booting out of McCrory as governor largely because of HB2. Now we have a democratic governor and a republican legislature with a veto proof majority due to the way the state has been gerry mandered.
2. Unfortunately, the health care providers are abandoning Obamacare in droves. I am pessimistic that the democratic run states that are left can exert enough economic pressure to get their way.
Curiously, I have felt for some time that the New England states with democrat control could form an alliance to provide a progressive agenda supported by state taxes, including universal health insurance, tuition free community college, and minimum living wage, mandatory overtime and family leave, etc. etc. (see About WFP - Working Families Party).
That would be an interesting experiment.

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also in prison. Thoreau: Civil Disobedience (1846)
History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people. Martin Luther King
I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend. Thomas Jefferson
Seems to me if its clear that certain things that require ancient dates couldn't possibly be true, we are on our way to throwing out all those ancient dates on the basis of the actual evidence. -- Faith

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frako
Member (Idle past 305 days)
Posts: 2932
From: slovenija
Joined: 09-04-2010


(1)
Message 9 of 37 (795113)
12-06-2016 12:52 PM
Reply to: Message 6 by vimesey
12-06-2016 3:51 AM


(Complete control - not just taxing profits or passing safety laws or giving workers rights). Socialism (or its close cousin, communism)
No that is communism, in communism the idea is everything belongs to everyone and everyone takes an equal share. Hence profit is discouraged, and the country has control of almost all production or at least the larger factories and such.
While socialism is the idea that we dont leave our fellow humans behind, so it provides safety nets, free healthcare food stamps, social security .... stuff like that. Socialism does not care how the country is run, or how resources are devided, only that the poorest countrymen still have a decent standard of living.

Christianity, One woman's lie about an affair that got seriously out of hand
What are the Christians gonna do to me ..... Forgive me, good luck with that.

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Taq
Member
Posts: 9972
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.5


(2)
Message 10 of 37 (795127)
12-06-2016 2:24 PM
Reply to: Message 5 by Faith
12-05-2016 10:55 PM


Faith writes:
That's exactly how I feel about leftist policies.
What leftist polices don't you like? Do you want segregation back in place? Will you refuse to accept Social Security or Medicare? If you have kids, will you spend money on private schools instead of sending them to those Leftist public schools? Hope you don't want to drive on those publically funded highways.

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Taq
Member
Posts: 9972
Joined: 03-06-2009
Member Rating: 5.5


(11)
Message 11 of 37 (795128)
12-06-2016 2:27 PM
Reply to: Message 7 by Faith
12-06-2016 6:26 AM


Faith writes:
If Christianity still had the strength it used to have in the West then we COULD "leave it up to individuals" to take care of our fellow man,
We already tried that during the Great Depression. Didn't work. President Hoover pushed the very policies you are calling for, and the result were massive refugee camps called "Hoovervilles" where homeless people gathered. FDR fixed all of that with a leftist agenda. Your way doesn't work. The leftist policies do. That's fact.

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vimesey
Member
Posts: 1398
From: Birmingham, England
Joined: 09-21-2011


(1)
Message 12 of 37 (795163)
12-07-2016 2:51 AM
Reply to: Message 9 by frako
12-06-2016 12:52 PM


Not really, no. This from Socialism - Wikipedia
Socialism is a range of economic and social systems characterised by social ownership and democratic control of the means of production;as well as the political ideologies, theories, and movements that aim at their establishment.
This is pretty much my point - the term "socialism" is used to attack people with decent, human, liberal values of the sort you list (often where a number of those values are to some extent shared by the people supporting the right wing). The intention is to demonise people on the left with reference to the failed attempts at socialism/communism in Russia, China et al. In other words, if you're on the left, you must be socialist and want to steal everyone's property and appropriate it to the state.
Of course, that's what hardly anyone on the liberal left wants - but our calls for decent values of the sort you mention get drowned out by the outraged cries of the right wing commentators that we're socialists and want to have the state control everything.
I think that a calm, attentive conversation with people on the other side, is essential to progressing. Both sides need to really understand each other, and see that there are in fact areas of common ground and compromise. And part of understanding is looking to avoid incorrect labels like socialist and fascist - very few on the left are socialist, and I believe very few voting for those on the right are fascist.
Edited by vimesey, : Typo

Could there be any greater conceit, than for someone to believe that the universe has to be simple enough for them to be able to understand it ?

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 13 of 37 (795164)
12-07-2016 6:32 AM
Reply to: Message 12 by vimesey
12-07-2016 2:51 AM


I was going to say something along the lines frako said. It's Communism that has government control of the means of production, not socialism.
Yes there are some socialist programs a conservative also accepts, but I still often wish we could split the country between the socialists and the capitalists, since the two groups ARE roughly divided that way. But also in lots of other ways.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 14 of 37 (795165)
12-07-2016 6:38 AM
Reply to: Message 10 by Taq
12-06-2016 2:24 PM


It wasn't Democrats who ended segregation.
The schools weren't always leftist, but now I think homeschooling is far preferable.
I pay taxes for the highways. Public works are not a partisan concern.

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 15 of 37 (795166)
12-07-2016 6:41 AM
Reply to: Message 11 by Taq
12-06-2016 2:27 PM


By the time of the depression Christianity had already lost the strength I'm talking about, and it isn't something you could have a "policy" about anyway. If Christians were in any better position than everybody else they would be a major help. And I'm sure they were during the depression anyway, because that's how Christians are.

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