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Ted Cruz

7 (6.5%)

Rick Santorum

16 (14.8%)

Michelle Bachmann

13 (12%)

Chris Christie

23 (21.3%)

Rand Paul

49 (45.4%)

Total Members Voted: 107

[misko27]

So, I say we organize bets on how long till it's locked. Cash being totally imaginary. I'm putting 500 monopoly dollars (Going rate 15 Monopoly = 10 imaginary American dollars. Do your own conversions for imaginary Euro et all) on, let's say, 4 weeks.

[Darvi]

I bet fifty dorfbucks on two months because I hate imaginary money.

[MaximumZero]

I give it three months. I'm betting my optimism.

[scriver]

So, I say we organize bets on how long till it's locked. Cash being totally imaginary. I'm putting 500 monopoly dollars (Going rate 15 Monopoly = 10 imaginary American dollars. Do your own conversions for imaginary Euro et all) on, let's say, 4 weeks.

Stop trolling.

[lemon10]

So, I say we organize bets on how long till it's locked. Cash being totally imaginary. I'm putting 500 monopoly dollars (Going rate 15 Monopoly = 10 imaginary American dollars. Do your own conversions for imaginary Euro et all) on, let's say, 4 weeks.

If you aren't going to contribute to the discussion then just get out of here rather then coming in every page saying that this is going to crash and burn.

[Dutchling]

PTW

[Scoops Novel]

Troll, the problem is hyperbole ("emotional tripe", obvious correlations between high standards of education and one that is not a witchburning one, etc), badly backed graphs, and quoting out of context. You know i could dig up 20 and more such examples from older threads, and I'm prepared to put some down to human error, but it's getting willful. It would likely help if i, at least, had a better idea of your political standpoint.

I believe that you're the guy who's always setting up a new thread like "What's your favorite sandwich?" and so on. It's surreal that I'm justifying myself to you. Okay, fine. My graphs were well-backed by federal tax data, if I know the infamous graph that you're referencing here. Interpretations of that data can be various, but the data continues to be well-backed--even if you don't like my particular interpretation. My interpretation was a flotation of an idea that I've had, and I am willing to admit that it could be wrong. Yet it bears inspection.

Hyperbole and quoting of out context? No idea what you're talking about. If you can't provide examples, then I have to assume you're just spitting out a gut feeling that amounts to "I disagree with this, therefore this has to be wrong somehow" and that is not true.

Learning is cool, but it can be done everywhere. Often at no cost.

Now this I disagree with. 

We agree in substance.

I was setting up a distinction between education and learning. If you're pursuing a focused skill set with the objective of being useful and marketable, it's hard to avoid taking structured classes for it. Yet a great deal is learned outside of formal education. I was thinking of desultory learning in the sense of maintaining a curious mind. I do think that is a noble aspiration. Personally, I like studying history and tinkering with graphics on inkscape and photoshop. I like dabbling in stocks and commodities markets, some days more than others. I like discussing philosophy, economics, and I can become an armchair anything at a moment's notice. I like learning many diverse subjects, and I won't ever stop, but I am done with formal education.

From my perspective, in a country where students go to school 17 hours a day, formal education does not seem something to be unquestioningly elevated. To be 高分低能 is a well-known category of student here: to ace all the tests, but fail at any application of knowledge. Education in itself does not make anyone better or smarter. It increases the knowledge base. That's it. What you can do with that knowledge is up to you. People who fail to make this connection are often the boors who end up with five degrees and can't wait to tell you about them. 

Irrelevant, i gave an example, and you didn't answer my last question. The thread probably wont be locked though. Toady likely wouldn't give us another shot for 3 and a half years, and i hope that will be borne in mind.

[RedKing]

Aqizzar's thread went 720 pages before dying a natural, peaceful death. Mine went 67 pages. This one looks like it'll be lucky to make 6 pages.

Based on this progression, the next politics thread will consist of six lucid words followed by a recursive image spam of a bald eagle shitting on a flag.


@Trollheiming: Nice try cherry-picking your statistics. Absolute Federal spending is a great way to make blue states look like leeches and red states look thrifty....because blue states are WHERE ALL THE PEOPLE ARE. Saying that Federal spending vs. Federal tax revenue is irrelevant is just telegraphing that you're either not interested in an honest discussion, or incapable of one.

[FearfulJesuit]

Great, I stumble back into this thread and it's one of the dumbest things I've heard today (naturally, since I just woke up). Trollheiming may have a point in that the top three are California, New York and Illinois...it's worth noting that none of those three are Texas, which is second-largest population-wise; California, New York and Illinois are #1, #3 and #5 (#4 is Florida, which is a swing state; currently Republicans control all three houses of state goverment in Florida).

I'd appreciate it if people didn't spam about bets. Trollheiming, I'm watching you. The rest of you: Trollheiming may have proven himself to be an idiot in past discussions, but it's mostly the rest of us who can't resist the temptation to embark on that most noble and pointless of quests to rid the Internet of yet another moron. That's why he's a flame magnet. I can't really in good conscience penalize somebody for drawing false conclusions from irrelevant data, although it seems like Trollheiming should probably know better.

The other thing is that discussions across any ideological chasms in general but, it seems, libertarianism in particular often veer into meta territory. Do not do this. Trollheiming, do not do this. The rest of you, do not do this. I mean, yes, a few posts or even half a page is fine, but limit it.

Also notably, we're starting to get meta about education. Cut it out. Start an education thread if you must.

[RedKing]

Great, I stumble back into this thread and it's one of the dumbest things I've heard today (naturally, since I just woke up). Trollheiming may have a point in that the top three are California, New York and Illinois...it's worth noting that none of those three are Texas, which is second-largest population-wise; California, New York and Illinois are #1, #3 and #5 (#4 is Florida, which is a swing state; currently Republicans control all three houses of state goverment in Florida).

Actually, no. According to the site he himself linked, the top three are California, Texas and New York. The top three in population? California, Texas and New York.

Top 10 by total Federal spending:
1. California
2. Texas
3. New York
4. Florida
5. Virginia
6. Pennsylvania
7. Illinois
8. Ohio
9. Maryland
10. Michigan


Top 10 by population:
1. California
2. Texas
3. New York
4. Florida
5. Illinois
6. Pennsylvania
7. Ohio
8. Georgia
9. Michigan
10. North Carolina


So the only states that are really out of their weight class in Federal spending in the top 10 are Virgnia and Maryland. Go take a look at a map and see what happens to be wedged conveniently between Virginia and Maryland. Oh, that's right! WASHINGTON D.C.  Anybody who's dealt with the Federal government knows that D.C. isn't big enough to house most of the government, so a lot of it spills over into southern Maryland and northern Virginia. That's what you're seeing there. It ain't welfare queens in Baltimore or hippie liberals in Richmond (all five of them), it's the freakin' Federal government itself accounting for that spending.

As far as the other states...congratulations! You just found that more people = more spending. Certainly that Nobel in economics can't be far behind.

[FearfulJesuit]

Which states have the most federal spending? Do you know? Here's federal spending without your statistical chicanery of crunching it against their GDPs. Absolute spending. Look who gets the most spending! New York, Illinois, and California!

Trollheiming, you are talking completely out of your ass. It's one thing to misinterpret data. It's another thing to link to a site that says X and claim that it said very nearly the opposite of X. Debate and discussion thrive when people take facts and the opinions of others into account, rather than ignoring them, which is what you are doing.

Pull this too many more times and you're out of this thread. Er, or something.

Also, next time you cite statistics, it may be better to choose a more trusted source than that of a right-wing kook with a garishly colored homepage. Surely the Feds themselves have a site where you can track their spending?

Or you could even start with everyone's favorite source for facts. It's got citations and everything!

[RedKing]

No, no, I'm enjoying this immensely. Even working with a right-leaning website, their OWN NUMBERS contradict the argument presented. I decided to crunch the numbers myself. Taking the spending and revenue numbers from that site (2009 estimated), and the 2010 Census Bureau numbers for population, I cranked out per-capita numbers, so that we can even sidestep the issue of spending vs. revenue. After all, the biggest welfare queen states shoud be those slimy-ass liberal ghettos right? Because we know they blow our tax dollars on their handouts and expensive mass transit systems and subsidies for Esperanto operas and shit, right?

Top 10 States in Spending Per-Capita:
1. District of Columbia ($87,228). Obviously, this is something of a special case. For one, most people who work in DC actually live in Alexandria or Arlington or Bethesda or Falls Church or what have you. The actual residential population of DC is pretty small. I've been to DC enough to know they're not exactly pimping it bling-bling over in Anacostia.

2. Alaska ($22,649). What? The land of self-sufficient, "we-don't-need-no-stinkin-Washington-pork-you-betcha", rugged opportunists individualists like Sarah Palin?? Say it ain't so! Unfortunately, it is so. Beyond the cost of simply maintaining human habitation in the Arctic, all Alaskan residents receive a Federal stipend just for living there. Made sense fifty years ago when nobody in their right mind would move to a chunk of land that was north of much of Canada. Doesn't make sense anymore.

3. Virginia ($21,982). As you'll see below, there's two main drivers of that: NoVa is basically the southern suburb of Washington DC. Second, Norfolk Naval Station, the largest naval base on the planet. It's kinda big, and it kinda costs a lot of money.

4. Hawaii ($20,304). As with Alaska, it costs a lot of money to maintain an American presence in a chunk of land thousands of miles away from the mainland. Also, another big naval base.

5. Maryland ($17,407). Like Virginia, it's largely an extension of DC. However, there are some questions as to whether it actually exists.

6. New Mexico ($15,117)
7. North Dakota ($13,391)
8. Massachusetts ($13,214)
9. Kansas ($12,907)
10. Wyoming ($12,758).

Oh dear, I'm afraid California, Illinois and New York (the Axis of Blue) aren't even in the list. In fact, they're 48th, 45th and 36th, respectively.

But wait, I hear you say! Military expenditures are skewing the numbers. After all, we shouldn't punish poor North Dakota for its critical Air Force installations, or Alaska for its NORAD bases, or Virginia for housing half the damn Navy!

And I agree. In the context of "which states are the real "leeches sucking on America's tits'" argument, we should exclude military spending. So I ran the same numbers with the non-defense spending figures (mind you, these are from the site Trollheiming linked).

Top 10 States for Non-Defense Spending Per Capita:

1. District of Columbia ($78,663). Same logic still applies. Federal expenditures in DC are huge because by definition that's where the core of the Federal government operates.

2. Hawaii ($14,114). So there's definitely something other than Pearl Harbor driving the expenditures here. My guess would simply be that it takes a lot of money to build and maintain infrastructure on a clump of rocks 3000 miles out in the ocean. And it takes a lot of infrastructure to have anything other than grass huts and pineapple farms on said clump of rocks.

3. New Mexico ($13,578). Again, not sure of the reason underlying this, could be BIA expenditures since New Mexico has a huge chunk of its land in the form of reservations, and another sizeable chunk administered by the Department of Energy (Los Alamos), where some rather big-ticket projects tend to take place.

4. Alaska ($13,079). Okay, so it's not just NORAD driving that number.

5. Maryland ($13,027). Again, DC North. Without much extra population to spread out the cost.

6. Virginia ($12,502)
7. North Dakota ($12,145)
8. Wyoming ($11,948)
9. South Dakota ($11,393)
10. Montana ($11,305)

Where's our Axis of Blue now?
30. New York ($9,355)
37. Illinois ($8,615)
49. California ($7,693) -- note that California actually dropped a spot once defense spending was removed, because that eliminates Naval Station San Diego, 29 Palms, Camp Pendleton, and a host of other smaller bases. California kinda has a big military presence. Freakin' liberals.



BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!

"Okay, so high-population states can spread their spending out so the low-population states are being punished. But those expenditures in barren wastelands like North Dakota, Alaska and Wyoming are job creators and investments. And we know those folks work hard, not like the millions of lazy welfare bums in the big cities."

So, we shouldn't measure it against total revenue, because that would unfairly impact the little states. It would also unfairly impact the big states, because the net surplus/deficit would naturally be larger, even if it's just a 1% difference. So...let's look per capita.

Top 10 States by Per Capita Federal Revenues

1. District of Columbia ($34,087). Y'know....when you have lots of government in a city, you have lots of lobbyists in a city. And law firms. And contracting firms. And high salaries. Which adds up to a lot of taxbase for the size. Again, this isn't the folks over in Anacostia, this is places like Georgetown.

2. Delaware ($17,483). Dela-what now?? There's not even anything IN Delaware! But apparently when Joe Biden talks about those hard-working blue-collar folks in his state, he ain't kidding.

3. Minnesota ($13,741). Apparently "Minnesota nice" includes paying your taxes.

4. Connecticut ($13,125)
5. New Jersey ($12,300)
6. Massachusetts ($11,040)
7. Rhode Island ($10,397)
8. New York ($9,980)
9. Arkansas ($9,613)
10. Nebraska ($9,466)

Let's see....what do #1 through #8 all have in common? Oh yeah, they're solidly LIBERAL states. For the record, Illinois is #12, California is #29.

Your bottom five?
47. Alabama ($4,519)
48. New Mexico ($4,507)
49. South Carolina ($4,436)
50. West Virginia ($3,483)
51. Mississippi ($3,374)

Yee-haw.


And just for shits and giggles, let's subtract spending from revenue per capita, and really see who the biggest Federal "freeloaders" are by state, shall we?

Turns out there are only four states that are net contributors to the Federal Treasury, and the fifth is a net wash.

Per-Capita Contribution/Deficit to the Federal Treasury

1. Delaware (+$7,146)
2. Minnesota (+$4,451)
3. New Jersey (+$2,721)
4. Connecticut (+$616)
5. Illinois ($0)

Oh hey, look...I see Blue People.

New York? It's #6 with a -$82 deficit per capita.
California is #15 with a -$2,177 deficit per capita.

The worst offenders?
47. New Mexico (-$10,609)
48. Virginia (-$13,703)
49. Hawaii (-$14,774)
50. Alaska (-$15,153)
51. District of Columbia (-$53,141)

Okay, I know, I know....military spending shouldn't count because tanks don't pay taxes (although the soldiers manning them do). I'll re-reun the numbers excluding military spending.


Per-Capita Contribution/Deficit to the Federal Treasury (non-defense spending)
1. Delaware
2. Minnesota
3. Connecticut
4. New Jersey
5. Nebraska
6. Texas
7. Illinois
8. New York
9. Ohio
10. Rhode Island
11. Colorado
12. Massachusetts
13. Arkansas

All thirteen are net contributors if you remove defense spending. California comes in at #14, with a -$582 deficit per capita. The adjusted bottom feeders?

47. Montana
48. West Virginia
49. Hawaii
50. New Mexico
51. District of Columbia


So there's an argument to be made that the Federal government itself isn't very good at providing funding to the Federal government. That's as patently obvious as it is patently pointless as an argument. It's like saying a bank doesn't get very many deposits from itself.

But the fact remains that when Mitt Romney or some other conservative defiantly says "I built that!", it was probably a blue-stater that paid for it.

[Trollheiming]

No, no, I'm enjoying this immensely. Even working with a right-leaning website, their OWN NUMBERS

Their "own" numbers which ultimately derive from census estimates linked on the righthand panel. Numbers which oddly align with the Wikipedia article given out by dhokarena. No, no, these numbers are Republican, goddammit! How tribalistic of you.

Actually, Red King, you basically took my point, shat on it and discarded its general message, inserted some babble like "welfare queens" and "esperanto subsidies" that you bigotedly associate with all Republicans, and used the hollowed out husk as a punching bag. It made you feel good, and feeling good is what internet debate is all about. Congratulations.

I said that GDP skews the data. To break it down by per-capita is much the same, since more people equals more aggregate production. You did this number-crunching without regard for my argument that certain base levels of investment go into even the states with few people and smaller resulting economies. These investment levels would pale against the number of people in larger states, but in sparsely populated states, those base levels of investments make an outsize fraction of total product. Thus your GDP numbers and your per capita numbers. Absolute numbers tell a different story, and since every state needs infrastructure and military bases as nodes in our defense network, even sparsely populated states with small economies get a base level above the per capita considerations.

That wasn't sensational enough, so you created your own opponent and your own facile argument from his fake mouth. Again, congratulations on "winning" that argument.

But the fact remains that when Mitt Romney or some other conservative defiantly says "I built that!", it was probably a blue-stater that paid for it.

Yeah, I agree. So, you're saying that Mitt Romney--who is a blue stater, like many other unfortunate and persevering Republicans--paid his own way. Thanks for clearing that up. I'm so glad you haven't reduced this thread to simple tribalism where you smear blue warpaint onto your face and pretend that everyone in blue states is a perfect clone of your beliefs.

Pull this too many more times and you're out of this thread. Er, or something.

Whatever, dude. I won't be contributing in the sense of agreeing and building upon opinions that I disagree with. What kind of meek bitch do you take me or any other principled debater to be? Opinions like your childish rejection of "evil Republican" data, which comes from the same federal census estimates as your proffered Wikipedia link and shows rather similar data despite different fiscal years, are a silly bit of red-blue tribalism that didn't even ask the important question whether the data was correct before you reflexively dismissed it. I think that mentality is harmful to real debate and I will not add and build upon such thinking.

I think all opinions need vetting, and a cultural of agreement and addition can pile up errors from not being critiqued. I will not be party to the model of hand-holding that you call debate. I'm from the old school that puts two opposing views on opposite sides of a stage and has them thrash out an understanding through adversarial interaction.

[Nadaka]

No, Trollheiming. Breaking it down per capita doesn't skew it.

The relationship between #of people and potential for production is EXPLICITLY LINEAR.

Wich brings us back to the point RedKing is most likely making.

Every god damn time you try to support your assertions with any kind of reference, you link to sources that actually refute your own assertions.

This isn't an isolated incident, it happens every time.

[RedKing]

Mea culpa. I took too much pleasure out of hoisting someone by their own statistical petard. I've seen statistics dismissed often enough because they didn't come from the "right" sources, so when I'm able to use the numbers that you yourself linked to, I'm damn sure going to make a point of it, so that you can't dismiss the argument on the basis of erroneous data.

It's difficult to argue against you because your argument is more slippery than a buttered eel. Pray tell, what was your general message?

Federal spending spread equally over all the state won't compare equally in each state's own economies, but in absolute terms, the red states are actually not getting that sweet of a deal.

Actually, they are. Certainly a better deal than a number of the "blue" states. And no, that's not tribalism, it's dealing in the paradigm that you yourself are offering up by lumping the "red states" together as a mismaligned group that really don't deserve excoriation.

Absolute spending. Look who gets the most spending! New York, Illinois, and California!

Again, either you didn't actually look at the data you yourself provided, or you're blind to the word "Texas".

I said that GDP skews the data. To break it down by per-capita is much the same, since more people equals more aggregate production.

......I mean this in the nicest possible way. Do you actually understand the point of per-capita measurement? Because if you measure, for instance, GDP per capita, you get tiny places like Luxembourg turning out far better than say, the People's Republic of China, despite China having a far bigger GDP. This is useful if you're looking at how "rich" a country is in terms of the average citizen. Likewise, if we're looking for who is the most profligate leech on the Federal teat, ignoring revenue and ignoring per-capita figures is simply baffling.

You're only looking at absolute figures because they give you the results you want: That the "big blue states" (Texas is exempt because....well, just because, apparently) are killing America with their runaway spending, despite the fact that said spending is where most of the people are, is less per person than most of the rest of the country, and in turn generates most of the tax base. You cannot, in good faith, argue that Mississippi (for example) is anything other than a net drain on the Federal treasury.

I think the biggest lesson out of this exercise for me is that we should all send Minnesota and Delaware a big thank-you card.