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Donald J Trump wins big in SC
- Thread starter Dinkum
- Start date
another redneck hillbilly incest bible thumping poor white trash welfare state,yawnz....tell me something new,these fucktards will always vote for the conservative candidate.they are as daft as sinkies comes.
Good. Time to go all out war on Islam.
Donald Trump just won today's South Carolina Republican primary, according to calls by NBC News, Fox News, and the Associated Press. This is the billionaire's most important win yet, and it firmly establishes him as the Republican presidential frontrunner.
The votes are still being counted, so the final margin isn't known. But the media outlets' quick calls of the race indicate that things weren't all that close.
If true, that's fantastic news for Trump, and the timing of his victory means it could have dramatic implications for the overall race. That's because the pace of voting is about to accelerate very quickly — so Trump's win here could mean he has the momentum going into Super Tuesday on March 1, when 11 states will hold Republican primaries or caucuses.
But that's not all. Trump's Palmetto State win is also significant because he has won the first Southern contest. It seemed, in theory, that the evangelical, staunchly conservative Texan Ted Cruz could be more appealing to Southern voters than Trump, a New Yorker who is not particularly ideologically conservative or religious. Yet Trump's anti-immigration message — focused on "making America great again" — seems to have resonated here.
That could matter a great deal, because those Super Tuesday states coming up so soon are mainly Southern states. If Trump follows up his win today with similar wins in states like Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, and Arkansas on Super Tuesday, he could rack up a pretty sizable delegate lead — and his remaining rivals would have to scramble to try and catch up.
If the field remains crowded, Trump could keep racking up delegates
The Republican nomination contest has entered a very dangerous phase for GOP elites. Only Donald Trump and Ted Cruz — both of whom they loathe — have won contests so far. And the upcoming calendar and delegate allocation rules could make it difficult for a mainstream contender like Marco Rubio to win many delegates if the field remains crowded, as the Upshot's Nate Cohn has written.
So, can Trump still be stopped?
The answer to that question could come down to one crucial dynamic: how quickly the GOP field shrinks in the next few weeks, and who gets knocked out of the race.
"What happens really is dependent upon the extent to which the field winnows," Josh Putnam, a University of Georgia lecturer and expert on nominating rules who runs the Frontloading HQ website, told me on Thursday. "So much of it is dependent on that one variable alone."
For instance, it's generally believed that Jeb Bush and John Kasich have been predominantly drawing votes from Marco Rubio. If that's true, the longer they stay in the race, the more difficult it will be for Rubio to win delegates on March 1. Though those states are all supposed to allot their delegates proportionally, several have set thresholds that candidates need to meet to qualify for delegates. So if Rubio is losing votes to Bush and Kasich, he risks falling below those thresholds. (That's why it was such good news for Rubio that Bush suspended his campaign Saturday night.)
Then there's Ted Cruz. Even if Trump beats him in many of the Southern Super Tuesday contests, he could perform strongly enough to win second place in many of them. But the back half of the primary calendar is filled with relatively few "red" states — instead, the biggest delegate hauls will be found in big blue states like New York, Pennsylvania, and California. And it doesn't seem likely that Cruz can be competitive with Trump in blue states.
The upshot is that, so long as the GOP field remains divided, Trump has a big opportunity to roll to a series of victories and rack up delegates. So, unless one clear challenger to Trump establishes himself soon, the outlook for his campaign will seem better than ever.
The votes are still being counted, so the final margin isn't known. But the media outlets' quick calls of the race indicate that things weren't all that close.
If true, that's fantastic news for Trump, and the timing of his victory means it could have dramatic implications for the overall race. That's because the pace of voting is about to accelerate very quickly — so Trump's win here could mean he has the momentum going into Super Tuesday on March 1, when 11 states will hold Republican primaries or caucuses.
But that's not all. Trump's Palmetto State win is also significant because he has won the first Southern contest. It seemed, in theory, that the evangelical, staunchly conservative Texan Ted Cruz could be more appealing to Southern voters than Trump, a New Yorker who is not particularly ideologically conservative or religious. Yet Trump's anti-immigration message — focused on "making America great again" — seems to have resonated here.
That could matter a great deal, because those Super Tuesday states coming up so soon are mainly Southern states. If Trump follows up his win today with similar wins in states like Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, and Arkansas on Super Tuesday, he could rack up a pretty sizable delegate lead — and his remaining rivals would have to scramble to try and catch up.
If the field remains crowded, Trump could keep racking up delegates
The Republican nomination contest has entered a very dangerous phase for GOP elites. Only Donald Trump and Ted Cruz — both of whom they loathe — have won contests so far. And the upcoming calendar and delegate allocation rules could make it difficult for a mainstream contender like Marco Rubio to win many delegates if the field remains crowded, as the Upshot's Nate Cohn has written.
So, can Trump still be stopped?
The answer to that question could come down to one crucial dynamic: how quickly the GOP field shrinks in the next few weeks, and who gets knocked out of the race.
"What happens really is dependent upon the extent to which the field winnows," Josh Putnam, a University of Georgia lecturer and expert on nominating rules who runs the Frontloading HQ website, told me on Thursday. "So much of it is dependent on that one variable alone."
For instance, it's generally believed that Jeb Bush and John Kasich have been predominantly drawing votes from Marco Rubio. If that's true, the longer they stay in the race, the more difficult it will be for Rubio to win delegates on March 1. Though those states are all supposed to allot their delegates proportionally, several have set thresholds that candidates need to meet to qualify for delegates. So if Rubio is losing votes to Bush and Kasich, he risks falling below those thresholds. (That's why it was such good news for Rubio that Bush suspended his campaign Saturday night.)
Then there's Ted Cruz. Even if Trump beats him in many of the Southern Super Tuesday contests, he could perform strongly enough to win second place in many of them. But the back half of the primary calendar is filled with relatively few "red" states — instead, the biggest delegate hauls will be found in big blue states like New York, Pennsylvania, and California. And it doesn't seem likely that Cruz can be competitive with Trump in blue states.
The upshot is that, so long as the GOP field remains divided, Trump has a big opportunity to roll to a series of victories and rack up delegates. So, unless one clear challenger to Trump establishes himself soon, the outlook for his campaign will seem better than ever.
ur beloved trump got voted in by the poorest,least educated,dumbest,backwards,racist white trash state and u are so happy lmao.......good job!!!!
spewing garbage all day long and u retards lapping it up like dogs!!!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_GDP_per_capita
It’s a Fact: Republican Run Red States Have America’s Highest Poverty Rates
During the protests against America’s involvement in the Viet Nam war, it became very popular for warmongers and so-called patriots to tell young men facing losing their lives in a worthless war and those protesting to save them that this is “America, love it or leave it.” The implication was that since Congress adhered to the Constitution in waging war, regardless the devastating consequences, the American people were obliged to either show their love of country and support the war or get out. There is a segment of the population today that hates America, its people, and the nation’s founding document, but instead of packing up and leaving the country, they have tasked Republicans to punish the entire population by legislating that all Americans suffer their lifestyle founded on poverty, bigotry, ill-health, and religious ignorance. Although there are Americans who hate this nation across the country, it is the former Confederacy that is punishing the people because they failed in their attempt to destroy America of their rejection of the United States Constitution they claim to love.
Southern states are still resentful they were unable to rip America apart because the Constitution forbade them from keeping dark-skinned human beings as livestock, so they spent the past 149 years punishing different groups of Americans based on their religion’s instruction manual (Christian bible). Over the past thirty years, angry southerners began electing Republicans to strip everything from the people until they relented to a government by bible that drove their attempt to restrict other Americans from their Constitutional freedoms. Republicans have happily accommodated southerners to bring down the rest of the nation to their level of poverty and distress that southern red state voters embrace so long as they have imaginary enemies who believe Americans deserve more than slave wages, sickness, dire poverty, prayer, and firearms.
It is fairly common knowledge the former Confederacy considered owning human beings a biblically-supported and constitutional right according to their interpretation of the 10th Amendment. But even after losing the Civil War they persisted in targeting other groups for discrimination with biblical justification. Since their war against America, southern states opposed interracial marriage, women’s right to vote, civil rights, voting rights, women’s right to choose their reproductive health, and recently gay rights. The impetus for their opposition to those rights guaranteed in the Constitution is founded in their religion and since they were prohibited by the Constitution from depriving those groups of their rights, they have taken out their anger on the rest of the population by electing Republicans to Congress who promise to subject every American to conditions red southern state residents live under including poverty, slave wages, sickness and disease, and no hope of ever escaping their chosen lifestyle.
It is difficult for reasonable Americans to comprehend why voters in the South continue electing Republicans that campaign on perpetuating living conditions most Americans consider unacceptable. It is not because they believe all Americans live in poverty and love it, or that they are unaware their miserable plight is unavoidable. Most likely they are willing to live in poverty and ill-health with no chance of escaping because they are angry the rest of the nation will not tolerate their bigotry and hate; their only recourse is electing Republicans to legislate America into one big red state mired in bigotry, religion, guns, and deep poverty.
According to The Department of Agriculture’s measure of poverty, every red state from Arizona to South Carolina has the highest poverty rates in America; between 17.9% and 22.8%. The so-called bible belt is America’s poverty belt including Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and South Carolina. According to the Children’s Defense Fund, nearly one in four children trapped in Southern red states live in dire poverty and parents of those children elect Republicans to make those despicable statistics uniform across America. Part and parcel of conditions driving the South’s poverty is low wages that voters elect Republicans to perpetuate across America.
Southern states are hostile to organized labor, five states have no state minimum wage, most are “right to work for less” states, and the 10 states with the lowest average incomes are in the former Confederacy including Mississippi, Arkansas, West Virginia, Alabama, Kentucky, New Mexico, Tennessee, Louisiana, South Carolina and Oklahoma according to the Equality of Economic Opportunity Project. Republicans in Congress promote policies that create poverty across the South and red state voters elect them anyway to subject the entire nation to low wages and the poverty they engender.
The depth of Southern voters’ hatred for other Americans and their own families is evident in their support for Republicans that rejected expanding Medicaid in most of the South. According to a map by the Urban Institute, counties with the most people without healthcare insurance are in the Southern United States and it defies comprehension why voters support Republicans who prevent their children, parents, brothers and sisters from access to healthcare that does not cost states one cent for the first few years and only 10% (at most) thereafter. The same voters avidly oppose the Affordable Care Act that reveals they want tens-of-millions of Americans to suffer the same ill-health and disease they choose for their families.
It is unfathomable that residents in southern red states reject attempts to help them climb out of poverty and sickness, but religion and guns are powerful motivators for people still holding a grudge over being prevented from owning slaves, restricting women’s rights, and discriminating against Americans according to their religious beliefs. It is no coincidence that the poorest Southern states are also the most religious and have the most firearm violence. In fact, the poorest states have the highest incidence of gun violence to go along with some of the highest gun ownership rates that Republicans take advantage of by joining the National Rifle Association fear mongering that President Obama is coming after their guns as fervently as he is coming after their religious liberty.
Many pundits assert the conditions in southern red states are the fault of Republican-dominated legislatures, but without voters electing Republicans and teabaggers to preserve the deplorable conditions southern states would not lead the nation in poverty. Unfortunately, the same people electing Republicans at the state level vote for Republicans in Congress because they promise to oppose Democrats and President Obama’s campaign to disarm Southern state residents’ of their guns and bibles. It is certain that if President Obama and Democrats supported religious-driven bigotry and gun fanaticism, red southern state voters would reciprocate and support policies giving them decent wages, healthcare, and domestic programs to combat poverty. However, since that will never happen they will vote to elect Republicans to Congress to impose their deplorable living conditions on the entire population and spread their real America to every state in the Union.
During the protests against America’s involvement in the Viet Nam war, it became very popular for warmongers and so-called patriots to tell young men facing losing their lives in a worthless war and those protesting to save them that this is “America, love it or leave it.” The implication was that since Congress adhered to the Constitution in waging war, regardless the devastating consequences, the American people were obliged to either show their love of country and support the war or get out. There is a segment of the population today that hates America, its people, and the nation’s founding document, but instead of packing up and leaving the country, they have tasked Republicans to punish the entire population by legislating that all Americans suffer their lifestyle founded on poverty, bigotry, ill-health, and religious ignorance. Although there are Americans who hate this nation across the country, it is the former Confederacy that is punishing the people because they failed in their attempt to destroy America of their rejection of the United States Constitution they claim to love.
Southern states are still resentful they were unable to rip America apart because the Constitution forbade them from keeping dark-skinned human beings as livestock, so they spent the past 149 years punishing different groups of Americans based on their religion’s instruction manual (Christian bible). Over the past thirty years, angry southerners began electing Republicans to strip everything from the people until they relented to a government by bible that drove their attempt to restrict other Americans from their Constitutional freedoms. Republicans have happily accommodated southerners to bring down the rest of the nation to their level of poverty and distress that southern red state voters embrace so long as they have imaginary enemies who believe Americans deserve more than slave wages, sickness, dire poverty, prayer, and firearms.
It is fairly common knowledge the former Confederacy considered owning human beings a biblically-supported and constitutional right according to their interpretation of the 10th Amendment. But even after losing the Civil War they persisted in targeting other groups for discrimination with biblical justification. Since their war against America, southern states opposed interracial marriage, women’s right to vote, civil rights, voting rights, women’s right to choose their reproductive health, and recently gay rights. The impetus for their opposition to those rights guaranteed in the Constitution is founded in their religion and since they were prohibited by the Constitution from depriving those groups of their rights, they have taken out their anger on the rest of the population by electing Republicans to Congress who promise to subject every American to conditions red southern state residents live under including poverty, slave wages, sickness and disease, and no hope of ever escaping their chosen lifestyle.
It is difficult for reasonable Americans to comprehend why voters in the South continue electing Republicans that campaign on perpetuating living conditions most Americans consider unacceptable. It is not because they believe all Americans live in poverty and love it, or that they are unaware their miserable plight is unavoidable. Most likely they are willing to live in poverty and ill-health with no chance of escaping because they are angry the rest of the nation will not tolerate their bigotry and hate; their only recourse is electing Republicans to legislate America into one big red state mired in bigotry, religion, guns, and deep poverty.
According to The Department of Agriculture’s measure of poverty, every red state from Arizona to South Carolina has the highest poverty rates in America; between 17.9% and 22.8%. The so-called bible belt is America’s poverty belt including Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and South Carolina. According to the Children’s Defense Fund, nearly one in four children trapped in Southern red states live in dire poverty and parents of those children elect Republicans to make those despicable statistics uniform across America. Part and parcel of conditions driving the South’s poverty is low wages that voters elect Republicans to perpetuate across America.
Southern states are hostile to organized labor, five states have no state minimum wage, most are “right to work for less” states, and the 10 states with the lowest average incomes are in the former Confederacy including Mississippi, Arkansas, West Virginia, Alabama, Kentucky, New Mexico, Tennessee, Louisiana, South Carolina and Oklahoma according to the Equality of Economic Opportunity Project. Republicans in Congress promote policies that create poverty across the South and red state voters elect them anyway to subject the entire nation to low wages and the poverty they engender.
The depth of Southern voters’ hatred for other Americans and their own families is evident in their support for Republicans that rejected expanding Medicaid in most of the South. According to a map by the Urban Institute, counties with the most people without healthcare insurance are in the Southern United States and it defies comprehension why voters support Republicans who prevent their children, parents, brothers and sisters from access to healthcare that does not cost states one cent for the first few years and only 10% (at most) thereafter. The same voters avidly oppose the Affordable Care Act that reveals they want tens-of-millions of Americans to suffer the same ill-health and disease they choose for their families.
It is unfathomable that residents in southern red states reject attempts to help them climb out of poverty and sickness, but religion and guns are powerful motivators for people still holding a grudge over being prevented from owning slaves, restricting women’s rights, and discriminating against Americans according to their religious beliefs. It is no coincidence that the poorest Southern states are also the most religious and have the most firearm violence. In fact, the poorest states have the highest incidence of gun violence to go along with some of the highest gun ownership rates that Republicans take advantage of by joining the National Rifle Association fear mongering that President Obama is coming after their guns as fervently as he is coming after their religious liberty.
Many pundits assert the conditions in southern red states are the fault of Republican-dominated legislatures, but without voters electing Republicans and teabaggers to preserve the deplorable conditions southern states would not lead the nation in poverty. Unfortunately, the same people electing Republicans at the state level vote for Republicans in Congress because they promise to oppose Democrats and President Obama’s campaign to disarm Southern state residents’ of their guns and bibles. It is certain that if President Obama and Democrats supported religious-driven bigotry and gun fanaticism, red southern state voters would reciprocate and support policies giving them decent wages, healthcare, and domestic programs to combat poverty. However, since that will never happen they will vote to elect Republicans to Congress to impose their deplorable living conditions on the entire population and spread their real America to every state in the Union.
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10 Republican Red States That Mooch off Coastal Liberal States
Data shows that these hypocritical GOP-leaning states are likely to be the biggest recipients of federal tax money.
One of the most hilarious talking points coming from far-right Republicans and the Tea Party is that when “red states” like Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana are asked to bail out California or Massachusetts, that’s when they will finally become “fed up with socialism” and secede from the Union once and for all.
The problem with that meme is that it has no basis in reality: the more prosperous and Democrat-leaning areas of the United States are likely to be subsidizing dysfunctional “red states,” many of which are suffering from insufficient tax revenue and an abundance of low-wage workers who don’t have much to tax. Tea Party Republicans like to point out that poor cities like Detroit, Baltimore and Camden, New Jersey are run by Democrats, but they neglect to mention that some of the most affluent parts of the United States—from Manhattan to the Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area to Cambridge, MA to Seattle to Chicago’s North Shore suburbs—are dominated by the Democratic Party. People in those heavily Democratic areas pay a lot of federal income taxes, and quite often, their tax dollars go to red states.
Earlier this year, the personal finance website WalletHub.com conducted an in-depth study of the amounts individual states are paying in federal taxes compared to the amounts they are receiving. WalletHub analyzed data from the Internal Revenue Service, the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. Commerce Department and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. WalletHub’s research demonstrates that, as a rule, the states that are the most likely to rail against “big government” are the most likely to be benefiting from it.
A few of the states in WalletHub’s study that were receiving the most tax revenue from the federal government are states that President Barack Obama won in 2012 (most notably, New Mexico and Hawaii), but most were hardcore “red states.” And most of the states that, according to WalletHub, are taking less from the federal government than they are paying in are “blue states” that Obama won in both 2008 and 2012, including California, Massachusetts, Delaware, Illinois, New Jersey, New York and Minnesota. WalletHub’s research bears out comparable figures released by the nonpartisan Tax Foundation in the past: analyzing IRS data, Tax Foundation has found, more than once, that red states are likely to be the biggest recipients of federal tax money.
Below are 10 red states that take full advantage of the federal government and would be much worse off without the “coastal liberal elites” they love to complain about.
1. Mississippi: Mississippi is one of the most Republican states in the U.S.: Republicans dominate the state government, and not since Jimmy Carter’s victory in 1976 has a Democrat carried Mississippi in a presidential race. “Fiscal responsibility” is a recurring theme in Mississippi politics, where Democrats are often characterized as people who couldn’t balance a budget if their lives depended on it. Yet the reality is that Mississippi is one of the most blatant examples of a state receiving more federal tax money than it gives: WalletHub finds that for every dollar in federal taxes Mississippi pays, it receives $3.07 from the federal government. A 2007 report from the Tax Foundation found that Mississippi was receiving $2.47 from the federal government for every dollar it was paying in.
The fact that Mississippi has a hard time making ends meet without help from Washington, DC stems from being a so-called “right to work” state, meaning it has a very low rate of unionization and plenty of low-wage jobs. Mississippi is one of the poorest states in the country, and Republican policies in that state—hostility to unions, opposition to raising the minimum wage at either the federal or state level, tax breaks for the wealthiest 1% of Americans—will likely keep Mississippi from being a substantial contributor to federal income taxes.
2. Alaska: Alaska didn’t become part of the U.S. until 1959, and since then, it has gone Republican in every presidential race except 1964 (when Alaska favored Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson over Republican Barry Goldwater). A bastion of hard-right politics, Alaska is the state where Sarah Palin was elected governor in 2006. But when it comes to “small government,” Alaska Republicans don’t practice what they preach: according to WalletHub, Alaska receives $1.42 from the federal government for every dollar it contributes. Tax Foundation’s research showed Alaska receiving $1.93 from Uncle Sam for every dollar paid in. Alaska Republicans love to rail against the federal government, but the reality is that Alaska needs federal tax revenue badly in order to function.
Alaska is infamous for its harsh winters, which put considerable wear and tear on the state’s infrastructure—and the money for that much upkeep and maintenance has to come from somewhere. That somewhere is Boston, Santa Monica, Brooklyn, Seattle and all the other places that are full of upscale Democrats Palin considers “un-American."
3. Alabama: Like Mississippi, Alabama is a state that hasn’t given a Democratic presidential candidate its electoral votes since 1976. Alabama is one of the most Republican-dominated states in the U.S., and it is also a state that is very reliant on the federal government. According to Wallet Hub’s study, Alabama receives 37% of its revenue from the federal government and receives $3.28 for every dollar it pays in federal taxes. Tax Foundation’s data showed Alabama receiving $2.03 in federal tax money for every dollar it was paying in.
There are ways in which Alabama could become less reliant on Washington, DC: raising the minimum wage and having a more unionized workforce would generate more income tax revenue. So would raising income taxes on Alabama’s 1%. But Alabama is a so-called “right to work” state, and a workforce that is generally underpaid and overworked isn’t going to generate a lot of federal income tax revenue.
4. Louisiana: In Republican-dominated Louisiana politics, it is fashionable to bash “big government liberals” who live in San Francisco or New York City. But when Louisiana Republicans do that, they are biting the hands that feed them. According to Wallet Hub’s research, Louisiana receives $3.35 from the federal government for every dollar it pays in; 44% of Louisiana's funding, WalletHub says, comes from Washington, DC.
Louisiana, under Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal, is another “right-to-work” state, and a state with so many underpaid workers is naturally going to have a lot less income to tax. So instead of hating the “limousine liberals” in Seattle or Boston for voting Democrat, Louisiana Republicans should thank them for all the federal income tax revenue they are getting from them.
5. Indiana: When Barack Obama won Indiana’s electoral votes in 2008, it was an anomaly: Indiana, which went Republican in every presidential election from 1968-2004, is one of the most conservative states in the Midwest and is much more Republican than Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois or Michigan. Pundits have often said that when it comes to politics, Indiana is “more southern than the South.” But the disdain that Indiana Republicans often express for “big government” rings false because according to Wallet Hub, Indiana receives $2.01 from the federal government for every federal tax dollar it contributes and receives 33% of its funding from Uncle Sam. Indiana Republicans can hate coastal Democrats all they want, but without the federal tax revenue Democratic areas generate, Indiana would have a hard time functioning.
6. Montana: Montana has a long history of going Republican in presidential elections. Between 1952 and 2012, Montana went Republican in every presidential race except 1964 and 1992. But for a state that is so conservative-leaning, Montana receives a lot of help from the federal government: WalletHub’s research shows that Montana receives $1.55 from the federal government for every dollar it contributes (the Tax Foundation’s 2007 report found that Montana’s intake from Uncle Sam was $1.92 for every dollar paid). Montana faces the same challenge as Alaska—long, harsh winters that can put considerable stress on its infrastructure—and the idea that Montana could function without tax revenue is pure fantasy.
7. South Carolina: The fact that South Carolina hasn’t gone Democrat in a presidential election since 1976 is a badge of honor to the state’s GOP. And Republican Gov. Nikki Haley once boasted, “I love that we are one of the least unionized states in the country.” But that is nothing to be proud of, especially in light of the fact that non-union workers tend to have lower wages and therefore, contribute less tax revenue. The Tax Foundation found that South Carolina was receiving $1.92 from the federal government for every federal tax dollar it was contributing.
Haley doesn’t think much of liberals, but considering that Delaware, Illinois, New Jersey, Minnesota and New York State—all of which Obama won in both 2008 and 2012—are giving more tax dollars to the federal government than they are receiving, she might want to reconsider and start thanking them for their help.
8. West Virginia: Although West Virginia presently has a Democratic governor (Earl Ray Tomblin) and has a Democratic majority in its state senate (most of them center-right Blue Dogs), it is still a conservative-leaning state with a strong Republican influence. Republicans have carried West Virginia in the last four presidential elections (Mitt Romney won 62% of West Virginia’s vote in 2012), but that doesn’t mean that the state doesn’t receive a lot of help from the federal government: WalletHub described West Virginia as a state that receives $2.22 in federal tax revenue for every dollar it pays, and the Tax Foundation’s figure in its 2007 study was $2.57 received per dollar paid.
Poverty has a lot to do with that: West Virginia is one of the poorest states in the country, with 17.6% of its population living in poverty from 2008-2012 compared to 14.9% nationwide (according to the U.S. Census Bureau). And with so many West Virginians living in poverty, they simply aren’t going to be a major source of income tax revenue.
9. Tennessee: One of the ludicrous talking points from Republicans is that the poor aren’t paying enough taxes. Actually, the poor do pay a lot of taxes, from sales taxes to taxes on utilities. But according to Republicans, the poor are freeloaders because they aren’t paying enough federal income taxes—and one way to balance state budgets, they cluelessly argue, is to cut state services and raise state taxes on the poor. Republicans flunk math, however, because someone making $7.25 an hour is going to have a lot less to tax than someone making $30 or $40 an hour. And therein lies the budgetary problem for a so-called “right-to-work” state like Tennessee: too many of its residents are working low-paying, non-union service jobs that generate a lot less sales and other state tax revenue than the unionized jobs Republicans are so bitterly opposed to. Tennessee, according to WalletHub, receives $1.64 from the federal government for every federal tax dollar it contributes—and WalletHub notes that 41% of Tennessee’s funding comes from Uncle Sam.
10. Kentucky: Kentucky, despite having a two-term Democratic governor (Steve Beshear), leans Republican: although Bill Clinton won Kentucky’s electoral votes in 1992 and 1996, that state has gone Republican in every other presidential race since 1980. Mitt Romney carried Kentucky by 22% in 2012, and many of the Democrats who hold office in the Bluegrass State are center-right Blue Dogs. But as widespread as talk of “small government” and “fiscal responsibility” are in Kentucky, WalletHub’s research shows that Kentucky receives $2.39 from the federal government for every dollar it pays. According to WalletHub, 35% of Kentucky’s revenue comes from Washington, DC. And the Tax Foundation found that Kentucky was receiving $1.75 from the federal government for every dollar paid.
Data shows that these hypocritical GOP-leaning states are likely to be the biggest recipients of federal tax money.
One of the most hilarious talking points coming from far-right Republicans and the Tea Party is that when “red states” like Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana are asked to bail out California or Massachusetts, that’s when they will finally become “fed up with socialism” and secede from the Union once and for all.
The problem with that meme is that it has no basis in reality: the more prosperous and Democrat-leaning areas of the United States are likely to be subsidizing dysfunctional “red states,” many of which are suffering from insufficient tax revenue and an abundance of low-wage workers who don’t have much to tax. Tea Party Republicans like to point out that poor cities like Detroit, Baltimore and Camden, New Jersey are run by Democrats, but they neglect to mention that some of the most affluent parts of the United States—from Manhattan to the Silicon Valley and the San Francisco Bay Area to Cambridge, MA to Seattle to Chicago’s North Shore suburbs—are dominated by the Democratic Party. People in those heavily Democratic areas pay a lot of federal income taxes, and quite often, their tax dollars go to red states.
Earlier this year, the personal finance website WalletHub.com conducted an in-depth study of the amounts individual states are paying in federal taxes compared to the amounts they are receiving. WalletHub analyzed data from the Internal Revenue Service, the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. Commerce Department and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. WalletHub’s research demonstrates that, as a rule, the states that are the most likely to rail against “big government” are the most likely to be benefiting from it.
A few of the states in WalletHub’s study that were receiving the most tax revenue from the federal government are states that President Barack Obama won in 2012 (most notably, New Mexico and Hawaii), but most were hardcore “red states.” And most of the states that, according to WalletHub, are taking less from the federal government than they are paying in are “blue states” that Obama won in both 2008 and 2012, including California, Massachusetts, Delaware, Illinois, New Jersey, New York and Minnesota. WalletHub’s research bears out comparable figures released by the nonpartisan Tax Foundation in the past: analyzing IRS data, Tax Foundation has found, more than once, that red states are likely to be the biggest recipients of federal tax money.
Below are 10 red states that take full advantage of the federal government and would be much worse off without the “coastal liberal elites” they love to complain about.
1. Mississippi: Mississippi is one of the most Republican states in the U.S.: Republicans dominate the state government, and not since Jimmy Carter’s victory in 1976 has a Democrat carried Mississippi in a presidential race. “Fiscal responsibility” is a recurring theme in Mississippi politics, where Democrats are often characterized as people who couldn’t balance a budget if their lives depended on it. Yet the reality is that Mississippi is one of the most blatant examples of a state receiving more federal tax money than it gives: WalletHub finds that for every dollar in federal taxes Mississippi pays, it receives $3.07 from the federal government. A 2007 report from the Tax Foundation found that Mississippi was receiving $2.47 from the federal government for every dollar it was paying in.
The fact that Mississippi has a hard time making ends meet without help from Washington, DC stems from being a so-called “right to work” state, meaning it has a very low rate of unionization and plenty of low-wage jobs. Mississippi is one of the poorest states in the country, and Republican policies in that state—hostility to unions, opposition to raising the minimum wage at either the federal or state level, tax breaks for the wealthiest 1% of Americans—will likely keep Mississippi from being a substantial contributor to federal income taxes.
2. Alaska: Alaska didn’t become part of the U.S. until 1959, and since then, it has gone Republican in every presidential race except 1964 (when Alaska favored Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson over Republican Barry Goldwater). A bastion of hard-right politics, Alaska is the state where Sarah Palin was elected governor in 2006. But when it comes to “small government,” Alaska Republicans don’t practice what they preach: according to WalletHub, Alaska receives $1.42 from the federal government for every dollar it contributes. Tax Foundation’s research showed Alaska receiving $1.93 from Uncle Sam for every dollar paid in. Alaska Republicans love to rail against the federal government, but the reality is that Alaska needs federal tax revenue badly in order to function.
Alaska is infamous for its harsh winters, which put considerable wear and tear on the state’s infrastructure—and the money for that much upkeep and maintenance has to come from somewhere. That somewhere is Boston, Santa Monica, Brooklyn, Seattle and all the other places that are full of upscale Democrats Palin considers “un-American."
3. Alabama: Like Mississippi, Alabama is a state that hasn’t given a Democratic presidential candidate its electoral votes since 1976. Alabama is one of the most Republican-dominated states in the U.S., and it is also a state that is very reliant on the federal government. According to Wallet Hub’s study, Alabama receives 37% of its revenue from the federal government and receives $3.28 for every dollar it pays in federal taxes. Tax Foundation’s data showed Alabama receiving $2.03 in federal tax money for every dollar it was paying in.
There are ways in which Alabama could become less reliant on Washington, DC: raising the minimum wage and having a more unionized workforce would generate more income tax revenue. So would raising income taxes on Alabama’s 1%. But Alabama is a so-called “right to work” state, and a workforce that is generally underpaid and overworked isn’t going to generate a lot of federal income tax revenue.
4. Louisiana: In Republican-dominated Louisiana politics, it is fashionable to bash “big government liberals” who live in San Francisco or New York City. But when Louisiana Republicans do that, they are biting the hands that feed them. According to Wallet Hub’s research, Louisiana receives $3.35 from the federal government for every dollar it pays in; 44% of Louisiana's funding, WalletHub says, comes from Washington, DC.
Louisiana, under Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal, is another “right-to-work” state, and a state with so many underpaid workers is naturally going to have a lot less income to tax. So instead of hating the “limousine liberals” in Seattle or Boston for voting Democrat, Louisiana Republicans should thank them for all the federal income tax revenue they are getting from them.
5. Indiana: When Barack Obama won Indiana’s electoral votes in 2008, it was an anomaly: Indiana, which went Republican in every presidential election from 1968-2004, is one of the most conservative states in the Midwest and is much more Republican than Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois or Michigan. Pundits have often said that when it comes to politics, Indiana is “more southern than the South.” But the disdain that Indiana Republicans often express for “big government” rings false because according to Wallet Hub, Indiana receives $2.01 from the federal government for every federal tax dollar it contributes and receives 33% of its funding from Uncle Sam. Indiana Republicans can hate coastal Democrats all they want, but without the federal tax revenue Democratic areas generate, Indiana would have a hard time functioning.
6. Montana: Montana has a long history of going Republican in presidential elections. Between 1952 and 2012, Montana went Republican in every presidential race except 1964 and 1992. But for a state that is so conservative-leaning, Montana receives a lot of help from the federal government: WalletHub’s research shows that Montana receives $1.55 from the federal government for every dollar it contributes (the Tax Foundation’s 2007 report found that Montana’s intake from Uncle Sam was $1.92 for every dollar paid). Montana faces the same challenge as Alaska—long, harsh winters that can put considerable stress on its infrastructure—and the idea that Montana could function without tax revenue is pure fantasy.
7. South Carolina: The fact that South Carolina hasn’t gone Democrat in a presidential election since 1976 is a badge of honor to the state’s GOP. And Republican Gov. Nikki Haley once boasted, “I love that we are one of the least unionized states in the country.” But that is nothing to be proud of, especially in light of the fact that non-union workers tend to have lower wages and therefore, contribute less tax revenue. The Tax Foundation found that South Carolina was receiving $1.92 from the federal government for every federal tax dollar it was contributing.
Haley doesn’t think much of liberals, but considering that Delaware, Illinois, New Jersey, Minnesota and New York State—all of which Obama won in both 2008 and 2012—are giving more tax dollars to the federal government than they are receiving, she might want to reconsider and start thanking them for their help.
8. West Virginia: Although West Virginia presently has a Democratic governor (Earl Ray Tomblin) and has a Democratic majority in its state senate (most of them center-right Blue Dogs), it is still a conservative-leaning state with a strong Republican influence. Republicans have carried West Virginia in the last four presidential elections (Mitt Romney won 62% of West Virginia’s vote in 2012), but that doesn’t mean that the state doesn’t receive a lot of help from the federal government: WalletHub described West Virginia as a state that receives $2.22 in federal tax revenue for every dollar it pays, and the Tax Foundation’s figure in its 2007 study was $2.57 received per dollar paid.
Poverty has a lot to do with that: West Virginia is one of the poorest states in the country, with 17.6% of its population living in poverty from 2008-2012 compared to 14.9% nationwide (according to the U.S. Census Bureau). And with so many West Virginians living in poverty, they simply aren’t going to be a major source of income tax revenue.
9. Tennessee: One of the ludicrous talking points from Republicans is that the poor aren’t paying enough taxes. Actually, the poor do pay a lot of taxes, from sales taxes to taxes on utilities. But according to Republicans, the poor are freeloaders because they aren’t paying enough federal income taxes—and one way to balance state budgets, they cluelessly argue, is to cut state services and raise state taxes on the poor. Republicans flunk math, however, because someone making $7.25 an hour is going to have a lot less to tax than someone making $30 or $40 an hour. And therein lies the budgetary problem for a so-called “right-to-work” state like Tennessee: too many of its residents are working low-paying, non-union service jobs that generate a lot less sales and other state tax revenue than the unionized jobs Republicans are so bitterly opposed to. Tennessee, according to WalletHub, receives $1.64 from the federal government for every federal tax dollar it contributes—and WalletHub notes that 41% of Tennessee’s funding comes from Uncle Sam.
10. Kentucky: Kentucky, despite having a two-term Democratic governor (Steve Beshear), leans Republican: although Bill Clinton won Kentucky’s electoral votes in 1992 and 1996, that state has gone Republican in every other presidential race since 1980. Mitt Romney carried Kentucky by 22% in 2012, and many of the Democrats who hold office in the Bluegrass State are center-right Blue Dogs. But as widespread as talk of “small government” and “fiscal responsibility” are in Kentucky, WalletHub’s research shows that Kentucky receives $2.39 from the federal government for every dollar it pays. According to WalletHub, 35% of Kentucky’s revenue comes from Washington, DC. And the Tax Foundation found that Kentucky was receiving $1.75 from the federal government for every dollar paid.
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REPUBLICANS ARE JUST LIKE SINKIES
8 disturbing trends that reveal the South’s battered psyche
Across red-state America, especially in the Deep South, recent statistics—such as these Huffington Post graphics—show that the cycle of poverty, in its many manifestations, is unchanged and holding firm. Why is this?
(Editor’s note: This piece has been updated to credit some underlying source material published in the Huffington Post by Business Editor Emily Cohn.)
It’s easy to say this is how Republicans like to run states—cutting budgets, not raising the minimum wage, opposing labor unions. They let the poor and working class stew in their hardscrabble juices. Meanwhile, they distract voters by accusing liberals of waging war on the few sources of personal power in Southerners’ difficult lives: their religious beliefs and owning guns. But go back several decades when segregationist Democrats ruled; for the most part, they weren’t very different from today’s Republicans.
So what is it that perpetuates decades of poverty in the Deep South? What follows are eight bundles of statistics tracking this latest cycle of poverty. Could it be that people who historically have been treated badly, who have little money in their pockets but look to the sky and pray, expect less from others—including the public and private sector? Does that explain why red-staters cling to God, gun ownership and a “leave-me-alone” ferocity? They expect politicians to defend their values and their pride and little more?
What’s going on here isn’t entirely political, even if it is used by red-state Republicans in their personal drive for power and influence. Look at what the following statistics reveal about red-staters trapped in deep cycles of poverty. What is the thread that connects lousy governance, bad health, evangelical religion and firearms fervor?
1. Southern states have the most poor people.
Looking through the widest lense, one sees that America’s sunbelt contains the poorest states. This is not just because it costs less to live in a warmer climate. The Department of Agriculture, which measures poverty, found that every red state in a 2,500-mile stretch from Arizona to South Carolina along the southern tier had the highest poverty rates in the U.S. in 2011, between 17.9 and 22.8 percent.
From west to east, that poverty belt includes Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, Georgia and South Carolina. As many as one in four Southern children live in poverty, the Children’s Defense Fund reported earlier this year, compared to the national average of one in five.
As you would expect, the vast majority of people falling under the poverty line in the poorest states do not have white faces—although there are poor whites. The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation compiles state poverty rates by race. In the poorest states, whites account for 15 percent to 20 percent of the poor.
2. Deep South states have no minimum wage.
People work hard, but that doesn’t mean they’re well paid—Southern business elites and politicians like it that way. Five states have no state minumum wage, meaning that the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour and $2.13 for tipped workers is the standard. While other states have raised these floors, that’s not so for Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and South Carolina. These states also are hostile to organized labor, like the entire South. The result is the 10 states with the lowest average household incomes are mostly southern. Starting at rock bottom, they are Mississippi, Arkansas, West Virginia, Alabama, Kentucky, New Mexico, Tennessee, Louisiana, South Carolina and Oklahoma.
3. Deep South has lowest economic mobility.
Politicans love to talk about the American Dream, which of course, is that hard work will result in a steady climb up the economic ladder. That promise is least likely across the South, according to the Equality of Economic Opportunity Project. It mapped economic mobility county by county across the U.S., and created this map showing that the South was where children born into poor homes were least likely to climb the economic ladder. The region’s businesses and business models overwhelmingly rely on low-wage work.
4. South has lowest per capita spending sy state government.
Given these private-sector proclivities, one might expect state and local governments to pick up the slack. While that may be true for education spending compared to other issue areas, at least as measured by high school graduation rates, the states that spend the least for their residents are mostly red states in the South and mountain west.
According to the Kaiser Foundation, per capita expenditures by states in 2011 averaged $5,385. At the very bottom were Nevada ($3,150), Florida ($3,482), Missouri ($3,858), Texas ($3,796), Georgia ($4,176), Idaho ($4,212), Alabama ($4,398), Tennessee ($4,743), and South Carolina ($4,797). Three Deep South states—Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana—spend more than the national average, as did West Virginia.
5. Forget about decent preventative healthcare.
When it comes to helping low-income households get access to healthcare, almost all red states, including most of the Deep South, have refused to do this under Obamacare. The U.S. Supreme Court gave states the option to open enrollment into state-run Medicaid programs for the unisured. Red-state Republicans have declined, although federal funds pay for more than 90 percent of this, with the feds paying the entire bill for the first few years. The Urban Institutemapped counties with the most uninsured people locked out of Obamacare. The result looks like a tornado track that starts in Oklahoma and Texas and goes into Missouri, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia and North Carolina.
6. One result: people self-medicate in response.
Human nature is human nature, regardless of geography. People will find ways to cope with life’s challenges. But public health statistics show the personal response in the poorest states produces some bad results. The Deep South has the country’s highest obesity rates, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The region has the most cigarette smokers. It has the highest teen birth rates. Now, other areas of the country take the trophy for other vices. But according to Gallup, the pollsters, the states with the most unhappy people are in that Deep South-Midwest swath: Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia.
7. Forget the lottery, just pray to Jesus.
Unlike Brandy Clarke’s new song, “Pray to Jesus, Play the Lotto,” Southerners do not spend the most on lottery tickets. Massachusetts takes that honor. But the South (and Utah) has the mostevangelical Christians. In Alabama, the third most Christian state (56 percent of residents) and the second most religious state, according to the Pew Research Center, Republicans recently proposed a state constitutional amendment to put the Ten Commandments in public buildings. Rep. DuWayne Bridges said school shootings and violent crime was “due to the Ten Commandments not being displayed.”
Whether politicians like Bridges believe that nonsense is not the point. He is promoting that pious view because he knows most Alabamans are likely to have more faith in God than in man, because they are very religious. That is a consequence of poverty. When people are poor and struggling and they can’t do too much about it, they seek escapes—overeating, smoking, doing drugs. Some look for answers in religion. People hold onto what they can control, such as their beliefs.
It’s no surprise that the poorest states are the most religious. Pew ranked the importance of religion, and found the 10 most religious states were, in descending order, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, South Carolina, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Georgia and Kentucky. But there other ways people who are battered by society try to feel personally powerful, which brings us to firearms.
8. And hold onto that gun!
The poorest states, which are the most religious, also have the most gun violence. That’s a sad consequence of a widespread gun-owning culture that goes beyond rural traditions of hunting. Southerners don’t trust government because Republicans tell them not to, allowing the GOP to do little to help people live better. Democrats who ruled the South during segregation drove the same point home. So it’s no surprise that the poorest states have some of the highest gun ownership rates and highest rates of gun-related violence.
The 10 states with the most gun violence, based on federal statistics, are, in descending order, Louisiana, Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Mississippi, South Carolina, New Mexico, Missouri, Arkansas and Georgia. People who don’t have much power in the world know that guns are powerful. Like their religious beliefs, guns steel people against a hard life. Unfortunately, when people emotionally snap and grab a gun, the result can be deadly.
Breaking the Cycle?
It’s not that difficult to understand the dynamics of voters in the poorest states electing Republicans who share their religious values and love of guns—but who won’t do much else to rebalance their state economies. Old habits are hard to break. If you are used to being treated poorly, that expectation can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. If red-state voters demanded more from their politicians, their employers and the institutions that perpetuate poverty, the status quo would begin to unwind and start to shift. Until then, reams of statistics will keep finding that America’s poorest regions are the same red states, run by white Republicans, and filled with people who have the blues.
8 disturbing trends that reveal the South’s battered psyche
Across red-state America, especially in the Deep South, recent statistics—such as these Huffington Post graphics—show that the cycle of poverty, in its many manifestations, is unchanged and holding firm. Why is this?
(Editor’s note: This piece has been updated to credit some underlying source material published in the Huffington Post by Business Editor Emily Cohn.)
It’s easy to say this is how Republicans like to run states—cutting budgets, not raising the minimum wage, opposing labor unions. They let the poor and working class stew in their hardscrabble juices. Meanwhile, they distract voters by accusing liberals of waging war on the few sources of personal power in Southerners’ difficult lives: their religious beliefs and owning guns. But go back several decades when segregationist Democrats ruled; for the most part, they weren’t very different from today’s Republicans.
So what is it that perpetuates decades of poverty in the Deep South? What follows are eight bundles of statistics tracking this latest cycle of poverty. Could it be that people who historically have been treated badly, who have little money in their pockets but look to the sky and pray, expect less from others—including the public and private sector? Does that explain why red-staters cling to God, gun ownership and a “leave-me-alone” ferocity? They expect politicians to defend their values and their pride and little more?
What’s going on here isn’t entirely political, even if it is used by red-state Republicans in their personal drive for power and influence. Look at what the following statistics reveal about red-staters trapped in deep cycles of poverty. What is the thread that connects lousy governance, bad health, evangelical religion and firearms fervor?
1. Southern states have the most poor people.
Looking through the widest lense, one sees that America’s sunbelt contains the poorest states. This is not just because it costs less to live in a warmer climate. The Department of Agriculture, which measures poverty, found that every red state in a 2,500-mile stretch from Arizona to South Carolina along the southern tier had the highest poverty rates in the U.S. in 2011, between 17.9 and 22.8 percent.
From west to east, that poverty belt includes Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, Georgia and South Carolina. As many as one in four Southern children live in poverty, the Children’s Defense Fund reported earlier this year, compared to the national average of one in five.
As you would expect, the vast majority of people falling under the poverty line in the poorest states do not have white faces—although there are poor whites. The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation compiles state poverty rates by race. In the poorest states, whites account for 15 percent to 20 percent of the poor.
2. Deep South states have no minimum wage.
People work hard, but that doesn’t mean they’re well paid—Southern business elites and politicians like it that way. Five states have no state minumum wage, meaning that the federal minimum of $7.25 an hour and $2.13 for tipped workers is the standard. While other states have raised these floors, that’s not so for Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee and South Carolina. These states also are hostile to organized labor, like the entire South. The result is the 10 states with the lowest average household incomes are mostly southern. Starting at rock bottom, they are Mississippi, Arkansas, West Virginia, Alabama, Kentucky, New Mexico, Tennessee, Louisiana, South Carolina and Oklahoma.
3. Deep South has lowest economic mobility.
Politicans love to talk about the American Dream, which of course, is that hard work will result in a steady climb up the economic ladder. That promise is least likely across the South, according to the Equality of Economic Opportunity Project. It mapped economic mobility county by county across the U.S., and created this map showing that the South was where children born into poor homes were least likely to climb the economic ladder. The region’s businesses and business models overwhelmingly rely on low-wage work.
4. South has lowest per capita spending sy state government.
Given these private-sector proclivities, one might expect state and local governments to pick up the slack. While that may be true for education spending compared to other issue areas, at least as measured by high school graduation rates, the states that spend the least for their residents are mostly red states in the South and mountain west.
According to the Kaiser Foundation, per capita expenditures by states in 2011 averaged $5,385. At the very bottom were Nevada ($3,150), Florida ($3,482), Missouri ($3,858), Texas ($3,796), Georgia ($4,176), Idaho ($4,212), Alabama ($4,398), Tennessee ($4,743), and South Carolina ($4,797). Three Deep South states—Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana—spend more than the national average, as did West Virginia.
5. Forget about decent preventative healthcare.
When it comes to helping low-income households get access to healthcare, almost all red states, including most of the Deep South, have refused to do this under Obamacare. The U.S. Supreme Court gave states the option to open enrollment into state-run Medicaid programs for the unisured. Red-state Republicans have declined, although federal funds pay for more than 90 percent of this, with the feds paying the entire bill for the first few years. The Urban Institutemapped counties with the most uninsured people locked out of Obamacare. The result looks like a tornado track that starts in Oklahoma and Texas and goes into Missouri, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia and North Carolina.
6. One result: people self-medicate in response.
Human nature is human nature, regardless of geography. People will find ways to cope with life’s challenges. But public health statistics show the personal response in the poorest states produces some bad results. The Deep South has the country’s highest obesity rates, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The region has the most cigarette smokers. It has the highest teen birth rates. Now, other areas of the country take the trophy for other vices. But according to Gallup, the pollsters, the states with the most unhappy people are in that Deep South-Midwest swath: Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas, Missouri, Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia.
7. Forget the lottery, just pray to Jesus.
Unlike Brandy Clarke’s new song, “Pray to Jesus, Play the Lotto,” Southerners do not spend the most on lottery tickets. Massachusetts takes that honor. But the South (and Utah) has the mostevangelical Christians. In Alabama, the third most Christian state (56 percent of residents) and the second most religious state, according to the Pew Research Center, Republicans recently proposed a state constitutional amendment to put the Ten Commandments in public buildings. Rep. DuWayne Bridges said school shootings and violent crime was “due to the Ten Commandments not being displayed.”
Whether politicians like Bridges believe that nonsense is not the point. He is promoting that pious view because he knows most Alabamans are likely to have more faith in God than in man, because they are very religious. That is a consequence of poverty. When people are poor and struggling and they can’t do too much about it, they seek escapes—overeating, smoking, doing drugs. Some look for answers in religion. People hold onto what they can control, such as their beliefs.
It’s no surprise that the poorest states are the most religious. Pew ranked the importance of religion, and found the 10 most religious states were, in descending order, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Tennessee, South Carolina, Oklahoma, North Carolina, Georgia and Kentucky. But there other ways people who are battered by society try to feel personally powerful, which brings us to firearms.
8. And hold onto that gun!
The poorest states, which are the most religious, also have the most gun violence. That’s a sad consequence of a widespread gun-owning culture that goes beyond rural traditions of hunting. Southerners don’t trust government because Republicans tell them not to, allowing the GOP to do little to help people live better. Democrats who ruled the South during segregation drove the same point home. So it’s no surprise that the poorest states have some of the highest gun ownership rates and highest rates of gun-related violence.
The 10 states with the most gun violence, based on federal statistics, are, in descending order, Louisiana, Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Mississippi, South Carolina, New Mexico, Missouri, Arkansas and Georgia. People who don’t have much power in the world know that guns are powerful. Like their religious beliefs, guns steel people against a hard life. Unfortunately, when people emotionally snap and grab a gun, the result can be deadly.
Breaking the Cycle?
It’s not that difficult to understand the dynamics of voters in the poorest states electing Republicans who share their religious values and love of guns—but who won’t do much else to rebalance their state economies. Old habits are hard to break. If you are used to being treated poorly, that expectation can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. If red-state voters demanded more from their politicians, their employers and the institutions that perpetuate poverty, the status quo would begin to unwind and start to shift. Until then, reams of statistics will keep finding that America’s poorest regions are the same red states, run by white Republicans, and filled with people who have the blues.
the proof is in the pudding tonychat,only the dumb,uneducated,low skilled and low paid and highly religious morons live in the southern red states and vote republican.......all the well educated rich highly paid college graduated american doctors,lawyers,accountants,white collar proffessional all live in blue liberal away from retards like you tonychat.....lmao voting for donald trump for president is like voting for the beggining of idiocracy in america.america is the most dysfunctional country in the world thanks to idiots like you and the idiots that vote these morons bush and trump and reagan into office
[video=youtube;sGUNPMPrxvA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGUNPMPrxvA[/video]
[video=youtube;sGUNPMPrxvA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGUNPMPrxvA[/video]
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