Net Recipient States

Via Ritholz, this:

Happily, the Tax Foundation — a conservative Washington-based think tank — has, however unintentionally, provided the answer. In 2007, the foundation published a survey of 2005 federal spending in each state and compared that with each state’s contribution in federal taxes. In other words, the foundation identified the states that sponge off the federal government and those that subsidize it. The welfare-queen states and the responsible, producing states, as it were.
The list, alas, hasn’t been updated — in part, no doubt, because conservatives didn’t like what it revealed: that those states that got more back from our government than they paid in were overwhelmingly Republican. The 10 biggest net recipients of taxpayers’ largess were, in order, New Mexico, Mississippi, Alaska, Louisiana, West Virginia, North Dakota, Alabama, South Dakota, Kentucky and Virginia. The 10 states that paid in the most and got back the least were New Jersey, Nevada, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Illinois, Delaware, California, New York and Colorado.
Now, that list has surely changed since the middle of the last decade — Virginia has probably gotten richer and paid in more; Nevada has surely gotten poorer and paid in less. But today’s ranking are probably much the same, unless farming and manufacturing suddenly pay more than finance and high-tech. Even allowing for cyclical variations and political transformations, it’s patently clear that the states that drain the government also constitute the Republicans’ electoral base, while those that produce the wealth constitute the Democrats’. Far from strengthening our moral character, the red states plunge us into the slough of dependency.

That is funny overall.  I think it is interesting that a state like Connecticut, home to many hedge fund titans, is a pretty high tax state, but governors in the Midwest claim that people are moving south to get lower taxes.  I think the real driver is the weather, but what do I know, I also thought that I might see the sun for more than 4 days in May.  I just love to see somebody point out the obvious: that the people who are the biggest beneficiaries of government dislike it the most.

Fool Me Once, Shame on You, Fool Me Twice.....

Are Americans really dumb enough to elect another Texas governor president after the experience with the last one?  Some people think so:

As many grass-roots Republicans remain in search of a conservative candidate with the pizazz to go toe-to-toe against President Obama, a man from deep in the heart of Texas who was tea party before the tea party was cool appears to be giving the presidential race some thought.
Gov. Rick Perry has insisted on multiple occasions that he has no interest in the presidency, but RCP has learned that political associates have begun to nose around quietly on Perry's behalf.
A Texas pol who is close to Perry has been telling a few key strategists that the nation's longest-serving governor sees a vacuum and is waiting to be summoned into the race. This source believes that could happen by late summer. Without fellow Southerners Haley Barbour or Mike Huckabee in the race -- and with Newt Gingrich's early troubles raising further doubts about the current lineup -- there could be a glaring niche for Perry to fill.
According to another well-connected Republican, at least one Perry confidant has been very quietly making inquiries about the political terrain in the nation's first voting state of Iowa. A third Perry associate, RCP has learned, has been heralding a small contingent of Iowans with the time-tested line that is often used by would-be candidates who are leaving their options open: "Keep your powder dry."
Perry's aides have long made it clear that the tough-talking Texan, who succeeded George W. Bush in Austin in 2000, would not seriously entertain the idea of mounting a White House run before the state's legislative session finishes at the end of this month. That date is now less than two weeks away, and the 2012 presidential field remains fluid.

This governor doesn't seem any brighter than the last one, so I hope to goodness that the Perry bandwagon doesn't get any momentum.  I would think that we ought to steer clear of Texans for a while, after the turd GWB dropped on this country.

Update:  I should include the classic GWB clip:

More On Stupid Competition Amongst States

Richard Longworth (h/t the Dish):

This competition is not new, but it seems to have heated up since 2009, when Kansas passed a law that lets companies relocating to the state keep 95 percent of their employee withholding tax for up to 10 years. This has lured several companies to move from Kansas City, Missouri, to Kansas City, Kansas (known locally as KCK) and its suburbs, bringing several hundred jobs with them. Stung by the moves, the Missouri KC has offered multi-million-dollar packages to keep firms, like the National Association of Insurance Commissioners and AMC Entertainment, from decamping to the Kansas side.
Top Corporate Leaders Urge Governors to Stop Poaching Neighbors’ Businesses, Kansas City Star, April 11, 2011
Businesses Stand to Gain Most in Rivalry of States, New York Times, April 7, 2011
Kansas and Missouri aren't the only Midwestern states raiding each other's watermelon patches. The governors of Wisconsin, Illinois and Indiana, which would seem to share a common economy, have been squabbling over which state has the lowest taxes, to the point that Indiana and Wisconsin have posted billboards on their state lines urging Illinois companies to flee north or east, as the case may be (presumably passing en route all those Democratic legislators from Indiana and Wisconsin who hid out in Illinois to avoid having to vote for objectionable legislation back home.)
In Kansas and Missouri, all this has reached the point that even businesses in the two KCs, which presumably could benefit from these bribes, have told their two states to grow up. Seventeen leading businessmen from both sides of the border sent an open letter to Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback and Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon, urging them to voluntarily "agree to a bilateral halt" in this "economic border war."
Nixon responded positively. Brownback basically told the businessmen to go jump in the Missouri River. This probably has something to do with the fact that, so far, Kansas has been winning most of these battles. 

Republicans have staked their political future on being able to prove that lower taxes mean more jobs, so they have to go around slashing taxes and spending, and then bribing businesses to move to their state, preferably from a higher tax state.  Unfortunately, this means cuts to primary, secondary and higher education, cuts to local governments and public safety, cuts to libraries and cuts to infrastructure spending.  Those are all long-term investments to improve the work force and the livability of the state which are being cut.  The short-term payoff of new jobs (taken from a neighboring state) might get a politician reelected or allow him to move to higher office (failing up, as it were), but come time those incentives expire, the business will start shopping for more incentives, possibly in a state which is willing to undermine long-term investment for short-term job growth (see Sears).  This is a failing strategy for all but the companies, and even they are undermining the long-term workforce quality where they move to.  When businesses are requesting that it stop, you know it has gone too far. 

Add Another Clown to the Circus

Elspeth Reeve reports Michele Bachmann will announce her presidential candidacy in June:

Michele Bachmann's presidential campaign is "beyond speculation," a Republican consultant tells Fox News' Chris Stirewalt. "They are doing this." The Minnesota congresswoman's advisers are telling reporters that it's "very likely" she'll jump in the race now that the lineup is starting to shake out. With evangelical favorite Mike Huckabee dropping out, Newt Gingrich in freefall practically minutes into his campaign, and Sarah Palin looking like she won't run, only Rick Santorum stands between Bachmann and the social conservative vote.

In another good sign for Bachmann, the early favorable polls for Donald Trump's faux candidacy show that some Republican voters, at least, have an appetite for sharp attacks on President Obama, something at which Bachmann excels. Since Trump announced that, you know what, business is his "greatest passion" after all, calls to Bachmann's offices "have been burning up our lines," a source told Fox News' Carl Cameron. One caller deemed the Tea Party favorite "our Margaret Thatcher!"

The Republican candidates for president should ride to the debates in one car, and not because that would be fuel efficient.

Gingrich Attacks Ryan Budget?

Andrew Sullivan covers Newt Gingrich's surprising Meet the Press slam on Paul Ryan:

This is interesting. Gingrich has now gone on record against Paul Ryan's proposal to turn Medicare into a voucher system designed not to keep pace with inflation, on the grounds that it is too radical a change, and reiterates his support for an individual mandate. That's two kicks to the balls of the movement right, as the splutters from NRO and Hot Air illustrate. May I just point out that vast parts of the Obama health reform were once conservative orthodoxy (healthcare exchanges, for example, and building on the private industry), just as cap and trade was once conservative orthodoxy.
Nonetheless, it's a sign that Newt may surprise this campaign season, either because he fears that the current GOP strategy reminds him a little scarily of what he once went through or because he's trying to win elderly primary voters, or because he just thinks Ryan's plan for Medicare really is too extreme a measure, given where America now is.

Maybe there will be a little healthy discussion in the GOP primary race.  I wouldn't count on it from any of them, but this seems like somewhat of a good sign.

Update: Mistermix at Balloon Juice doesn't see this as a good sign for GOP reasonableness:

Since his campaign is built on coded dog whistles, Newt’s targeting a older, white electorate that knows the code and hears the whistle.  So it’s no surprise that he ditched the Ryan plan almost immediately. And since he’s Newt, he has to make the Ryan plan sound like something Stalin cooked up:

He goes on to say that Newt seems to be reprising his '90's role as one of the Democrat's biggest assets, which I guess would be a positive development in my opinion.

John Boehner is Full of Crap or Stupid

Steve Benen thinks he means what he says (via Mark Thoma):

But that’s not what this is about. The House Speaker is presenting an economic vision based on fantasy, confusion, and lies. The man simply has no idea what he’s talking about.
Marcus, Bloomberg, and Chait walk through a striking list of bizarre errors of fact from Boehner. He said the economy will be worse off if the debt ceiling is raised without massive cuts. He thinks the Recovery Act “hurt” the economy. He believes the public sector is “crowding out” private investment. Boehner’s certain the economy “never” grows after a tax increase. He’s convinced Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac “triggered the whole meltdown” of the U.S. financial system.
These claims aren’t just wrong; they’re ridiculous. It has nothing to do with Democrats vs. Republicans, or left vs. right. This is Boehner vs. reality.
At an almost instinctual level, the political establishment tends to strongly resist this. I more or less understandable why — considering Boehner’s rhetoric at face value, and assuming he means what he says, is almost terrifying to think Boehner is so painfully confused.
But here we are. We’re left with the discomforting fact that it appears the Speaker of the House, Congress’ most powerful official, when dealing with the nation’s most important issue, is functionally illiterate, bringing the sophistication of a slow child to the debate.

I am stunned to talk to everyday people who believe what Republicans say.  Either the Republicans are completely ignorant and blind to reality, or they are the biggest, most conscience-free shills for rich assholes who like to screw over people who aren't as lucky and crooked as them (or both).  I haven't decided which is the case, but I'm leaning more and more toward ignorant.  Ten years of tax cuts haven't helped the economy.  All the banks (especially the investment banks) are responsible for the housing boom and bust.  The stimulus stopped the economic freefall.  All of that is obvious to anyone with eyes in their head.  Arguing against this is faith-based argument.

Gingrich Throws His Oversized Ego Into the Ring

Matt Taibbi on Gingrich announcing his presidential candidacy (h/t The Dish):

Purely from a political-theater standpoint, Gingrich brings several really outstanding qualities to this race. For one thing, he’s a legit threat to win the nomination. He wouldn’t be in any normal year, but when the field is Donald Trump, Michelle Bachman and Rick Santorum, anyone who can successfully lick a postage stamp without an instruction booklet is going to be a contender.

I can't believe that a single political party could come up with so many pathetic candidates for president, and yet they have.  It is going to be a very entertaining year-and-a-half.  And yet, if the economy tanks again, something I think is a very real possibility, one of these bozos may get elected.  That is not entertaining at all.

The Elephant in the Room

It's nearly impossible to cut the deficit entirely on spending cuts.  Especially when the Bush tax cuts would cause most of the future deficit if they are extended like John Boehner and Republicans want:



 Chart via Andrew Sullivan

Boehner and the Republicans need to get their heads out of their asses and face up to the fact that the Bush tax cuts are stupid.

Andrew quoted Ezra Klein's explanation:

Extending the Bush tax cuts over the next 10 years, which Boehner favors, will increase the deficit by twice as much as the $2 trillion in spending cuts he's calling for will reduce the deficit.

These guys have no business being in government.  A vote for them is a vote to destroy our society.

Torture Doesn't Work in Gathering Intelligence

Who should one believe, Dick Cheney or people who actually interrogate people?  Barry Ritholtz:

Virtually all of the top interrogation experts – both conservatives and liberals (except for those trying to escape war crimes prosecution) – say that torture doesn’t work:
• Army Field Manual 34-52 Chapter 1 says:

“Experience indicates that the use of force is not necessary to gain the cooperation of sources for interrogation. Therefore, the use of force is a poor technique, as it yields unreliable results, may damage subsequent collection efforts, and can induce the source to say whatever he thinks the interrogator wants to hear.”

• The C.I.A.’s 1963 interrogation manual stated:

Intense pain is quite likely to produce false confessions, concocted as a means of escaping from distress. A time-consuming delay results, while investigation is conducted and the admissions are proven untrue. During this respite the interrogatee can pull himself together. He may even use the time to think up new, more complex ‘admissions’ that take still longer to disprove.

I think it is a sign of how far the Republican party has sunk that we are even discussing this subject.

What Happened to Sarah Palin?

Joshua Green goes back to Sarah Palin's fight against the oil companies in Alaska, and asks what might have been:

Let’s stop here and go back for a moment to the convention speech—the alchemic moment of excitement and fantasy when Sarah Palin became the star of national politics. Listening to it today, you can practically hear her shift registers, the state figure morphing into a national one, the old Palin becoming the new. She touches on the pipeline, the corruption, how she broke the oil companies’ “monopoly on power” and ended a “culture of self-dealing.” But all of that is overshadowed by the full-throated assault on Barack Obama, rooted in deep cultural resentment, that became the campaign’s ethos and remains Palin’s identity. What resonate are her charges that Obama wanted to “forfeit” the war in Iraq and that he condescended to “working people” with talk of “how bitterly they cling to their religion and guns.”
That didn’t carry her to Washington, but it did reshape the contours of American politics. Today, there aren’t many Republicans of the type Palin was in Alaska; but nearly every Republican seeking the White House strives to evoke the more grievance-driven themes of her convention speech. Regardless of whether she runs too, her influence will be more broadly and deeply felt than anyone else’s. But it’s hard to believe that her party, or her country, or even Palin herself, is better off for that.
What if history had written a different ending? What if she had tried to do for the nation what she did for Alaska? The possibility is tantalizing and not hard to imagine. The week after the Republican convention, Lehman Brothers collapsed, and the whole economy suddenly seemed poised to go down with it. Palin might have been the torchbearer of reform, a role that would have come naturally. Everything about her—the aggressiveness, the gift for articulating resentments, her record and even her old allies in Alaska—would once more have been channeled against a foe worth pursuing. Palin, not Obama, might ultimately have come to represent “Change We Can Believe In.” What had he done that could possibly compare with how she had faced down special interests in Alaska?

I am violating my original rule of not mentioning Sarah Palin unless she announces a run for President, which I made on my first day of blogging.  I think she may have come up in an aside on a post or two, but I generally haven't followed her soap opera.  I think this article is definitely worth reading, as it presents an interesting portrayal of Alaska, the oil industry and Sarah Palin's amazing, really, accomplishment in taking on her own party and  Big Oil.  I think it is interesting when mentioning the convention speech that he also doesn't mention the mantra of that convention, "Drill, Baby, Drill."  Somehow, the ultimate slogan of obsequiousness to Big Oil became the rallying cry most often voiced by the one opponent of the industry in Alaska that beat them.  Unfortunately, the former governor's personal flaws and biases combined with her competitive nature to undermine all that she actually did accomplish.  I think Joshua Green's article title is correct, "The Tragedy of Sarah Palin."  The whole thing is worth reading.