This Toon Tells The Truth & I Am Pasting It Everywhere

[kpete]

Link to tweet

https://taxfoundation.org/federal-aid-reliance-rankings/

[brewens]

1. I had diversity training at the blood center I worked for at Spokane, Wa. I was in a

room full of co-workers that I mostly didn't know since I was new. Most of them had to have had at least as much education as I do, presumably more since several were mid management.

They grouped us up to play a Jeopardy style game. One of the first questions was which group has the most people on welfare? Not percentages, total. White, African American or Latino. I said white people and it's not even close. They overruled me and we blew that one. They said black people.

Spokane is a mostly white city with a hell of a lot of poor white people. Even in the rough parts of town, the street people you see are mostly white. How could they get that idea? Most cities and big towns in the country are more like Spokane than not. They have to way overestimate the number of black people and believe most of them are on welfare if they even thought much about it at all. That's really the problem, they don't really think about it much. They pretend what they are told to pretend.

[ancianita]

8. So it's not really a blood center? Just a shaper of baseless ideology? Don't Spokane whites read?

[maxsolomon]

20. No one reads. They watch TV or listen to AM Radio.

Or believe what they heard from some other dipshit.

Which is why Conservatives spend so much propagandizing through those media.

What's "Welfare", anyway? SNAP? TANF? No one knows that it basically doesn't exist anymore, either.

[brewens]

28. It is kind of a small sample and we lost, so the other groups were probably better.

Overall it is a pretty progressive place to work, but we of course had our share of right-wingers. Most knew to not discuss politics openly, but we all pretty much reveal what we support somehow.

I worked at a remote site with a smaller crew, so I wasn't around those guys all that much.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

19. At the end, wasn't the correct answer given?

[brewens]

26. Yeah. I said we blew that one but did not specify the correct answer was white. n/t

[Whiskeytide]

2. This cartoon has it wrong. And many here ...

... do as well. This is not the North v the South. It’s not the coasts v the flyover states.

It’s rural v metropolitan areas.

There are deep pockets of orange in the rural areas of NY, MA, CA, IL, PA and every other state in the US. Deep trump country. Deeply held convictions against progressive ideals. Look at OH and PA closely and examine where the votes come from.

The southern and Midwest states that get the ridicule here are simply the ones where the populations in the rural areas still outnumber the urban populations overall. Even in the deep red states, the metropolitan districts are ALWAYS more blue than the state as a whole.

The electoral college keeps up the appearance that it’s Alabama as a whole v New Hampshire as a whole. It’s not. And as Democrats, we should be able to understand that.

Sorry kPete. I don’t really mean to rain on your OP, and it’s a funny cartoon. It just misses the reality of our situation.

[empedocles]

3. Very true here in Virginia. Political county maps show a 90% plus red state.

Population maps make Virginia purple turning blue.

[Whiskeytide]

6. It's why VA, GA and even TX are ...

... on the verge of turning blue. Their metro areas have steadily grown, while the rural communities are declining in population.

Rural NY is a mirror image of rural Alabama. I’ve spent some time in both. If you drive halfway between Albany and Cooperstown (like I did in early June), you cannot distinguish it from Slapout, Alabama - except for the temp and the accents.

[mwb970]

11. The same thing happens as soon as you leave Columbus, Ohio.

It's Deepest Trumpistan out there.

[Gothmog]

4. Great cartoon

[TryLogic]

5. Warning. This has serious divisive potential.

[CatWoman]

7. k; r

[dalton99a]

9. Kick

[ancianita]

10. This is more about the economy than immigrants. It's from the tax foundation on fed aid reliance.

Here's more, probably not as up-to-date as it should be, but largely accurate in terms of outflow-input.

In states where "immigrants" are the big issue, employment is low, so the tax base is low, so education funding, etc. is low.

:large

[LexVegas]

13. That data is from 2005. nt

[ancianita]

14. More recent from TPM. I don't see any significant difference.

[LexVegas]

15. I do. nt

[ancianita]

18. That's it? Why not point it out. While you're at it, provide more recent data and help folks out.

I'm not saying it doesn't exist, but that I just don't see it.

This subforum is called "General Discussion" for a reason.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

21. In defense of New Mexico,

which gets back more than it pays, I'm fairly certain that a huge part of that has to do with a very large federal presence in the form of two national labs (Los Alamos and Sandia), plus four air force bases, and White Sands Missile Range. That's a lot for a state with barely more than 2 million people.

[ancianita]

22. Absolutely. The central command for covert operations is there, along with huuge military presence.

Military love to build in "lands of enchantment."

I have a son, friends there and have traveled there a lot.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

23. WHAT central command for covert ops?

[ancianita]

25. Psyops in Clovis. That's what friends have told me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clovis,_New_Mexico

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

29. While I certainly can't say

they aren't doing psyops there, I'm slightly surprised that in my eleven years living in this state I really haven't heard about that. Although the Wikipedia article on Cannon AFB in Clovis does say they train for special ops there. I don't think the two, psyops and special ops are necessarily the same thing.

[ancianita]

30. No, probably not.

[ancianita]

27. I admit I might be slopping psyops and covert around a bit. Sorry.

[Bayard]

12. Where I lived previously in Calif.

Was a heavily red area. Fresno County covers the Central Valley big ag region, up into the Sierra mountains where I lived. No comparison to southern Calif. or the Bay area, which is what everybody thinks of as a bastion of blue.

Every state has its blues and reds, and there's a whole lot of purple in-between.

[PatrickforO]

16. That tax foundation dot org seems a bit right wing. I went on there and looked at

their 'take' on some of the candidates' tax proposals.

[JHB]

17. They can be a good place to get raw data...

...but their analysis runs to the right of center.

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/tax-foundation/

Overall, we rate the Tax Foundation Right-Center biased based on advocating for Libertarian economic policy. We also rate them Mostly Factual in reporting due to a few half-true claims, despite proper sourcing and neutral wording.

https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Tax_Foundation

The Tax Foundation is the oldest non-profit tax think tank in the country, founded in 1937. Its stated mission is "to educate taxpayers about sound tax policy and the size of the tax burden borne by Americans at all levels of government." It also argues for a tax system characterized by "simplicity", "neutrality", "stability", "transparency" and "growth-promotion".[1] Tax Foundation is an "associate" member of the State Policy Network, a web of right-wing “think tanks” in every state across the country.

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Tax_Foundation

The Tax Foundation is a wingnut (un)think tank which publishes slanted economic papers about politically charged issues to push a libertarian perspective. The Foundation was founded by and for corporate interests by its own admission,[2] and advocates global warming denialism,[3] tax protester theories about the legality of taxation,[4] and other neoconservative talking points. Many of their reports have been thoroughly debunked by economists,[5][6][7] and even by popular outlets like Forbes

When I say "good place to get raw data" I mean for things like historical tax rates. For instance, it's easy to find historical top marginal tax rates, but harder to find where those kicked in, and how many brackets were below them, and where did those kick in. And how would that look adjusted for inflation? Some years back I was able to find that information on their site and mapped it out (note: MY graph, not theirs):




Graph below shows total number of income tax brackets, number affecting income above $250K, and number affecting income above $500K, adjusted to 2013 dollars:

[oasis]

24. K.M.A. takes on a new meaning.