Tag Archives: red state

Sinners, Red States, Blue States

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Mitt Romney, presidential candidate, said in now-infamous comments that 47% of the American electorate is dependent on the federal government, that he will never be able to teach them to take personal responsibility for their lives, and that they are certain to vote for Barack Obama in November.   He continues a tradition in his party that goes back at least three decades:  building political campaigns around the proposition that folks in the heartland exhibit the American virtues of self sufficiency and personal responsibility and the implication that other, more urban, regions display decadent social values and dependency on government. read more

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Red States, Blue States and the Distribution of Federal Spending

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           April 1 is Census Day.  Evidently Glenn Beck and Michele Bachmann have been encouraging Americans to boycott the census — to refuse to fill out the whole form.   This protest follows from their small government ideology.

           I am not always sure what they, or Republicans, or Tea Party participants mean by small government.  They say they want a government that intervenes less in the economic sphere.   Perhaps they don’t like the idea that the census numbers are used, among other things, to determine the allocation of federal spending across states, because they don’t think it is the business of the government to redistribute income.  That is “socialism.”    Even “Stalinism.” read more

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