Speaking of stuff in the NYT today, Kathryn brings my attention to this piece:
States that have already broadly expanded health care coverage are pushing back against the Senate overhaul bill, arguing that it unfairly penalizes them in favor of states that have done little or nothing to extend benefits to the uninsured.
With tax revenues down and budgets breaking, the states — including Arizona, California, New Jersey, New York and Wisconsin — say they cannot afford to essentially subsidize other states’ expansion of health care….
Of course, the state that has done the most for its citizens’ health care is South Carolina…
OK, OK, now that we’ve all split our sides laughing, we turn to the cold reality, which is that, as one of the last states that would ever consider going out of its way to ensure its citizens have adequate health care (because doing so would involve the — shudder — gummint), South Carolina is one of those most likely to suffer if those folks from Up North get their way.
Any time anybody is plotting to screw over “states that have done little or nothing to extend benefits to the uninsured,” we should holler, HEY, WAIT A MINUTE!…
There they go again, those Yankees, trying to mess things up for us. I’ll bet a lot of them have names ending in “i,” too. (Sorry, couldn’t resist, seeing as how it’s Kathryn who brought this up.)
According to this data, South Carolina has been on the dole pretty much for the past three decades.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/8229012/Tax-Donor-or-Contrib-States
Ranked #41 in federal tax dollars paid in and #11 in tax dollars received.
You better be nice or I’ll sic my ex-sister-in-law on you….but it’s not that she’s Italian American–she’s just bipolar and borderline…
Yes, Doug–our federal taxes are the best investment SC makes!
Now, SC has provided lots of grounds for laughter this summer, and laughter is the best medicine….
Kathyrn,
Yet all we heard when Sanford didn’t want to take the stimulus money was that “we’re paying for it, we might as well take it”… when in reality we never have paid for what we get back.
South Carolinians complain about Yankees but they’d be up the creek without them.
and now the disabled are suing to get some of that money to keep them in their homes instead of expensive institutions. Bill Byars at DJJ is warning that the improvements made in response to the federal lawsuit are evaporating, and I know they are using ultimately more expensive and less effective means to deal with offenders because with the budget cuts, they can’t staff group homes, etc.
and the list goes on….
Aiken, my home town, is the poster child for how to benefit from Yankees, if you ask me. It’s a very desirable place to live, attracts numerous well-off retirees who apy taxes but don’t use services, etc. Started with the Yankee horse people of the winter colony, then added the duPont bomb plant people, followed by Westinghouse folks from New Jersey who needed to rollover their $500K ranch house sale into someplace equally expensive, and then you got a bunch of golf course communities that don’t get socked by hurricanes, and the retirees came in droves. It’s no more attractive a place in terms of raw geography than Barnwell or Allendale, really–maybe a bit hillier, yet it has blossomed instead of dying….
50 states plus DC pay into the federal tax revenue system. 29 states plus DC receive more than they pay in. Amounts/percentages vary. Does that mean the 29 states and DC have no right to comment or complain about how their tax money is spent or distributed?
How the money is distributed probably depends on who is more successful in obtaining earmarks for their state. West Virginia has been the recipient of an extraordinary number of federal agencies relocating there since Byrd has been in the Senate than most other states. WVA receives more than is paid in.
DC ranks 51st as a donor, 1st as a recipient. California ranks 1st as a donor, 51st as a recipient.
Does anyone know how the money is distributed and who are the recipients and under what conditions? Are military installations included? Was the naval station in Charleston included during the period from ’81 thru ’05?
Was any weight given to the major donor demographics accounting for major finiancial centers, large metropolitian centers with large populations?
Just asking.
We need to remember one more little fact. For a very long time, SC had two of the longest serving senators in the country. One Democrat, one Republican. They had no problems finding earmark after earmark for the citizens of SC.
I’m thinking being among the poorest, most poorly educated, unemployed, etc., states probably has a great deal to do with how much money we get….actually a great outcome imho.Call me Robin Hood or Karl Marx –just seems right to me.