September 17, 2013

The Myth of Red State Welfare

By Sierra Rayne
During the last few years, a key liberal talking point has been "red state welfare." The argument is that the states that get more from the federal government than they pay in taxes tend to be red states, whereas the states that give more to the federal government than they pay in taxes tend to be blue states. This "red state welfare" hypothesis falls completely apart when we look at the data. The so-called top 10 "red states" on welfare are New Mexico, Mississippi, Alaska, Louisiana, West Virginia, North Dakota, Alabama, South Dakota, Virginia, and Kentucky. The purportedly bottom 10 "blue states" not on welfare are New Jersey, Nevada, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Minnesota, Illinois, Delaware, California, New York, and Colorado. To show how mindless this liberal proposition is, the "red state welfare" argument appears to be entirely based only on how each state voted in the most recent presidential election. This results in entirely junk science. First off, states that are either...(Read Full Article)