September 28, 2004
Political Twister
Left hand red-state, arm and a leg blue-state...
In an oft repeated bit of pablum, occupants of "blue-state" America increasingly bemoan that they are victims of a great unfair redistribution of income. As Andrew Sullivan calls it, "the red states have been draining the resources of the blue states dry for a very long time."
This is a nonsensical notion borne of elitist urbanite hubris.
Where do blue state residents suppose their food is grown? Cars are assembled? Power is generated? Military is based? These tasks require great amounts of space, large road infrastructure, and often direct spending by the federal government. Goods and services move between the coastal blue states across thousands of miles of rail and roadway, expensive to build and maintain but more than offset by the enormous profit of trade routing between the states. Urban centers may produce excess taxes, but they are not self sufficient, requiring influx of foodstuffs, consumables, fuel and energy - all of which require a great deal of land, low margins, and generally higher federal spending to facilitate.
Now add in the artificial wage and property value inflation in blue state Gotham, which creates artificial tax bracket creep, and you have people in blue states doing the SAME work as those in red states, but are paid more simply to meet the higher cost of living in urban America, like the 1300 square foot 60 year old house in San Francisco that runs for $325,000. The costs are higher, the pay is higher, but the tax rate isn't graduated for location, so you pay far more in taxes proportionally than someone living in a red state in the same relative income class.
Nobody seems to mind pumping oil out of Alaska, as long as they don't have to pay any more than the raw cost of extraction. Nobody minds extremely low cost, high quality foodstuffs, as long as they just have to pay open market costs for wheat. Nobody minds F-16s running CAP over your city, as long as they don't have to pay to pave the runway out of state...
This federalist democratic republic works because every state gives and takes. Blue states enjoy the benefits of an urban lifestyle, without the power plant, the cornfields, the unsightly 25 miles of hurricane fence around the Air Force base, the huge corrugated car assembly plant - at the cost of higher prices. The rural farmer may not pay as much in taxes and get more in highway funds than you, but he can't get tickets to Fiddler On The Roof, see the travelling Jasper Johns exhibit, take his wife to shop the latest DKNY fashions, go see professional baseball...
It's give and take, an economic symbiosis that is more than just net gain/loss on federal taxes. Urbanites need to stop worrying about what everyone else might be taking of theirs, and look around for a moment in awe of what they have available to them because of someone making a living in a red state.
Blue state lifestyle could not exist without red states...