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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

[Mictlantecuhtli]

Hey, check that out, a huge post about actual spending and Troll conveniently ignores it! I wonder how else we are to debate spending other than directly discussing the spending?

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.

Ah, the irony.

[FearfulJesuit]

T'be fair, even knowing that the data was the same as that on Wikipedia, I shouldn't have been so quick to judge Trollheiming for his sources.

Still, know that even if the data is valid, it advertises that you seemingly won't go for (relatively) unbiased sources, which is a net minus in any discussion.

[GlyphGryph]

Thanks RedKing, that work does not always go unappreciated. I thought it was quite educational.

[andrea]

However, trollheiming has a point in that there are some costs, such as interstate highways and railroads ( I am assuming those receive federal funding) that are independant from the people actually living in the state, much like the military costs.
An empty state (lets say, 100 people) would still have a military base and at least one highway/railroad going through it, driving per capita costs incredibly high, but that number doesn't really tell much about productivity of those 100 people, how much welfare they receive, etc. , because the error caused by fixed costs is way too large at this scale.

Federal spending can be considered to be partially proportional to population, and partially "fixed" cost ( although actually it depends on size and position, but not on population).
if we call total spending G, P is the population of the state and K represents fixed costs, with A being a constant, we can write
G= A*P + K
and then per capita
G/P = A + K/t

if we want to get information about the people, how much they take vs how much they give, K/t is not part of desired input, but an error, which gets larger as population gets smaller.
so, assuming that we want to get information about the people living in such states, I think it would be fair to remove any possible K.

[lemon10]

Troll is right in that in this case the source is rather irrelevant, since its pretty clear data that isn't really disagreed with by anyone.

Now his conclusion he drew from those facts are bizarre and nearly nonsensical, but attacking the data itself is clearly wrong in this case.

Its pretty clearly wrong to look at this from a right VS left narrative (which troll seems to be implying, but its a bit hard to tell due to the discussion having shifted so much from the start), but rather it belongs in a population per state narrative since smaller states getting more proportional money is a natural outcome of the senate having so much power due to its fundamentally non-population based representation.

E: Grammar

[Leafsnail]

I honestly cannot tell what Trollheiming's point is meant to be (other than "I have the moral high ground here").

[RedKing]

I suppose I could try to adjust for geographic size or population density, but I don't really think it's going to make a huge difference except at the extrema (Washington, D.C., Hawaii and Alaska, for reasons already cited). Wyoming has a tiny population, but it also has a tiny portion of its geographic area with any actual infrastructure. Outside of Casper and Cheyenne, it's all but uninhabited. Other than two stretches of Interstate, all the roads are so small that they're paid for with state or local funds. And they ain't spending that much on them -- I've driven some of them.

I am intrigued at why New Mexico comes off so unfavorably. I'm assuming reservations are part of it, but there are other states with bigger portions of land in reservations. Los Alamos National laboratory counts for about 8-9% of Federal non-defense spending in New Meixco. I'd really have to see a breakdown of the spending to see what's up there.

[MonkeyHead]

Roswell.

*hides from the incoming black choppers*

[RedKing]

That too. Though Area 51 is mostly in Nevada.

Could also be interesting to look at Federal spending per state vs. their own state budgets. States that are running smaller deficits may be doing so by offloading the cost to the Federal government, while states with lower per-capita Federal spending may be doing so by using state money to pay for things.

[zombie urist]

Your numbers are nice and all, but why does it matter and what does it imply?

[Zrk2]

DEA seizes $1.5M building after renters sell $37 of pot.

The war on drugs makes me sad.

[Andrew425]

Red king that's some interesting data you pointed out. It seems like far more states are taking money then adding to it which makes sense as to why the U.S. is in such dire straights.

As for unpopulated states contributing less I think we have to delve deeper then that. Small states don't have large cities which produce upper middle class jobs as well as high income jobs (doctors bankers and engineers) they do on the other hand probably produce more resources per person as they (I'm speculating here) use natural resources and manufacturing to create their wealth as opposed to a large state. If that's the case then while they may be lower income they don't have the same disparities in wealth as more populous states. So while they might contribute less for the country they produce the resources so that the populous states can profit off them.


I'm guessing that didn't make a lot of sense so i'll rephrase. Smaller states make actual wealth for the country and larger states (thorugh service industry) have much of the wealth flowing to them. So that they end up lookint like they are a net benefit.

Am I completely in the wrong with that perspective?

[Toady One]

Around the time he or she registered, Trollheiming was in an altercation and I warned him or her about the user name (which at the time included a troll avatar and the "I'm famished!" avatar text) and offered a name change.  I was blown off.  Since then, I've been cleaning up the mess.  Being disingenuous about budget data is almost standard for political debate, but when Trollheiming does it, especially stuff as blatant as turning a 1 3 7 list into a 1 2 3 list ordering, I get a ton of moderator reports and exasperated comments about the user name.  I'm not sure if Trollheiming is a troll, but it elected to be perceived as one, so it is gone.

[FearfulJesuit]

Back to your regularly scheduled other people being disingenuous about budget data.

[Skyrunner]

O_o

(This means PTW.)