Anyone notice Blue states tend to me more fiscally responsible?

[NuclearEnergy]

Was bored this evening and decided to look at the debt by U.S. state and I noticed something. Red states spend more than they make in revenue and Blue states it's just the other way around.

http://www.usdebtclock.org/index.html

The top left there's an option to view state debt

[Anomalocaris]

You mean there is smear, hypocrisy and malice in the right wing? No!

[Minimalist]

You may find this interesting, too.

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/mich...ederal-aid

Top 10 States That Rely Most on Federal Aid

There's a definite red-shift.

[popeyespappy]

Not that I think it makes a big difference, but I wonder why they left revenue from liquor sales out of their calculation?

In its calculations, the Tax Foundation noted that “general revenues includes state taxes and fees, but excludes utility revenue, liquor store revenue, and insurance trust revenue.”

[Opoponax]

This is one of those facts that send the conservative cockroaches scurrying to the insult bag. When presented with the fact that Commie-fornia utterly kicks the shit out of every red state in the union in terms of wealth, suddenly we're communists. When the flood happened last week and the week before, red state rubes were expressing glee over it.

God, I wish secession was a realistic possibility. It isn't, but it's nice to fantasize about California, Oregon, and Washington just bailing the fuck out and leaving that giant swath of red dirt and rocks to its own ignorant devices.

[Lek]

This is one of those facts that send the conservative cockroaches scurrying to the insult bag. When presented with the fact that Commie-fornia utterly kicks the shit out of every red state in the union in terms of wealth, suddenly we're communists. When the flood happened last week and the week before, red state rubes were expressing glee over it.

God, I wish secession was a realistic possibility. It isn't, but it's nice to fantasize about California, Oregon, and Washington just bailing the fuck out and leaving that giant swath of red dirt and rocks to its own ignorant devices.

California indeed has a high rate of well off people. It also has one of the highest income gaps between the rich and the poor in the nation; one of he key issues of the Democrat party. The poverty rate in California is the 17th highest in the nation.

The income gap in the blue state of New York is the highest in the nation and the poverty rate is 19th highest.

Additionally, I reviewed the statistics in the OP's reference and fail to see how the statistics show that blue states are more fiscally responsible. What are the statistics that bear this out?

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I also just checked and California had the 11th highest unemployment rate in the nation as of December 2016.

[popeyespappy]

This is one of those facts that send the conservative cockroaches scurrying to the insult bag. When presented with the fact that Commie-fornia utterly kicks the shit out of every red state in the union in terms of wealth, suddenly we're communists. When the flood happened last week and the week before, red state rubes were expressing glee over it.

God, I wish secession was a realistic possibility. It isn't, but it's nice to fantasize about California, Oregon, and Washington just bailing the fuck out and leaving that giant swath of red dirt and rocks to its own ignorant devices.

Whether or not California kicks the shit out of every red state depends on how you calculate shit kicking. In 2014 Cali had a GDP of $2.31 trillion. The GDP that year for Texas which is the next largest state by population was $1.65 trillion. So yes Cali's GDP for the year was 40% larger than that of Texas. BUT, at 38.8 million the population of California was almost 44% larger than that of Texas at 26.96 million. Giving us a per capita GDP in Texas of $61,201 vs $59,536 for California. On average the people of Texas are 2.8% more productive than the people of California.

[brewer]

Was bored this evening and decided to look at the debt by U.S. state and I noticed something. Red states spend more than they make in revenue and Blue states it's just the other way around.

http://www.usdebtclock.org/index.html

The top left there's an option to view state debt

Nope, don't see that at all. I see higher debt to GDP and higher debt per citizen in blue vs red (didn't look at all). What numbers are you looking at?

[Opoponax]

This is one of those facts that send the conservative cockroaches scurrying to the insult bag. When presented with the fact that Commie-fornia utterly kicks the shit out of every red state in the union in terms of wealth, suddenly we're communists. When the flood happened last week and the week before, red state rubes were expressing glee over it.

God, I wish secession was a realistic possibility. It isn't, but it's nice to fantasize about California, Oregon, and Washington just bailing the fuck out and leaving that giant swath of red dirt and rocks to its own ignorant devices.

Whether or not California kicks the shit out of every red state depends on how you calculate shit kicking. In 2014 Cali had a GDP of $2.31 trillion. The GDP that year for Texas which is the next largest state by population was $1.65 trillion. So yes Cali's GDP for the year was 40% larger than that of Texas. BUT, at 38.8 million the population of California was almost 44% larger than that of Texas at 26.96 million. Giving us a per capita GDP in Texas of $61,201 vs $59,536 for California. On average the people of Texas are 2.8% more productive than the people of California.

Congratulations on one red state coming up 2/3 of a trillion dollars short of California's economy. And Texas can keep it's fucked up "right to work" status, which is a euphemism for "permission to pay workers an unconscionable wage."

---

This is one of those facts that send the conservative cockroaches scurrying to the insult bag. When presented with the fact that Commie-fornia utterly kicks the shit out of every red state in the union in terms of wealth, suddenly we're communists. When the flood happened last week and the week before, red state rubes were expressing glee over it.

God, I wish secession was a realistic possibility. It isn't, but it's nice to fantasize about California, Oregon, and Washington just bailing the fuck out and leaving that giant swath of red dirt and rocks to its own ignorant devices.

California indeed has a high rate of well off people.  It also has one of the highest income gaps between the rich and the poor in the nation; one of he key issues of the Democrat party.  The poverty rate in California is the 17th highest in the nation.

The income gap in the blue state of New York is the highest in the nation and the poverty rate is 19th highest.

Additionally, I reviewed the statistics in the OP's reference and fail to see how the statistics show that blue states are more fiscally responsible.  What are the statistics that bear this out?

---

I also just checked and California had the 11th highest unemployment rate in the nation as of December 2016.

California has an enormous economy and does so in spite of the fact that we're a border state that has to worry about English as a Second Language issues, send more to the fed than we receive, and have a large migrant work force. I could go on, but it's like comparing Neil Degrasse Tyson to Mitch McConnel.

[TheRealJoeFish]

Well, I mean, I think the deal is this:

Highly-populated states (like CA and TX and FL and NY and IL) are going to have decent finances regardless of their policies, because they have lots of people and reasons for people to go there and jobs want to be by people and such. So some of them are going to be blue states with good economies, and some will be red states with good economies.

But then, small states look to the big states they are most ideologically similar to, and say "well, that state has a really good (red/blue) economy, and we're (red/blue), so we'll mimic their economy and achieve success like them!" What that's really doing is kicking any kind of empirical assessment of economic decision making to the curb in favor of ideological purity, and it has really crappy consequences, empirically.

But (and this is why libertarianism isn't a sustainable economic policy, but that's a *whole other* can of worms), people by and large don't care about actual results if they like the process. The average voter in, say, Oklahoma *is literally happier* being poorer and knowing they're so super red and that their state is a "free market haven" than they would be having more money and a better economy that's based on TAXATION WHICH IS LITERALLY THEFT YO.

And, hey, don't get me wrong - the blueys do this too. NO ONE makes economic policy based on anything that could be seriously called "rational thought" at this point. The important point for the purpose of this thread, though, seems to be that the smaller blue states and blue policies *do, in reality, attain better results.* There's lots of ways to frame it, and one can analyze the reasons for it into oblivion, but I don't think it can be seriously alleged that, in any given state, "red economic policy" is going to be better for the bottom line than "blue economic policy," with the possible exception of states that derive a significant portion of their gdp from natural resources rather than workers (and there are maybe 5 such states in the union).