I rest my case -

Best-Run States Are Heavily Republican, Study Finds

[www.investors.com]



6/01/2016

The report -- “Ranking the States by Fiscal Condition” -- used official government data to measure the states’ ability to pay short-term bills and meet longer-term obligations, such as public pensions or health care costs, using five separate measures.

Cash solvency, for example, measures a state's ability to pay its immediate bills. Budget solvency measures whether states will end the year with a surplus or deficit. Long-run solvency looks at a state’s ability to meet long-term spending commitments. Service-level solvency measures a state’s ability to respond to a demand for increased spending. And trust fund solvency measures unfunded pension liabilities and state debt.

States can do well on some measures and poorly on others. Alaska, for example, ranks at the top for cash, budget and long-run solvency, but near the bottom on the other two measures. Ohio ranks fifth in cash solvency, but 48th on trust fund solvency. This year’s report includes Puerto Rico, which scored dead last on every measure.

The report also provides an overall ranking of the states. And while Mercatus makes no mention of the states’ political leanings, every state in the top 10 except for Florida is solidly red, meaning those states voted for the Republican in each of the past four presidential elections (see table). And Florida has had a Republican governor since 1999, and the state House and Senate are both controlled by Republicans.

At the other end of the spectrum, except for Kentucky, the 10 worst states are all solidly blue. And all but two of the governors since 1947 have been Democrats.

Politicians, especially the “pragmatic” ones, are always talking about how they are just interested in what works. When it comes to keeping spending, debt and long-term liabilities under control, the place to look seems obvious.

The conservative approach of lower taxes and limited government is a winner, while big-spending liberalism invariably leads to financial ruin.

You can find the Mercatus report here -

[www.mercatus.org]

This could be the reason why 'The best run states are Republican.'

Economy: Blue States Worse Than Red Under Obama

[www.investors.com]

5/08/2012

Barack Obama entered the national spotlight with a rousing 2004 Democratic convention speech that talked about how it was wrong "to slice and dice our country into red states and blue states." Last week he reiterated the point in a tweet to his Twitter followers, saying that "there are no red states or blue states, just the United States."

But when it comes to the economic recovery, there has been a clear difference. It turns out that blue states have done worse economically than have red states under President Obama, according to an IBD analysis of various government economic data.

IBD compared average job growth, unemployment, changes in housing prices, per capita income and GDP growth, and gas prices for the 22 states that voted for John McCain in 2008 and the 28 states that voted for Obama .

On every indicator but one, blue states have done worse, on average, than red states.

In addition, IBD looked at the economic performance of 11 states that Real Clear Politics lists as tossups for the 2012 presidential election. Many of these purple battleground states have fared far worse than the country as a whole during the past three years.

Among the findings:

Job growth: The average increase for blue states was just 1.2% from June 2009 — the official start of the economic recovery — to March 2012. For red states, it was 1.9%. The national average was 1.8%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Unemployment: The jobless rate in March was 8.5% in blue states and 7.4% in red states, BLS data show.

Income: Blue states also did a bit worse when it came to per cap ita personal pay, rising 4.27% in 2011 compared with 4.35% in red states, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis data

GDP: The one measure where blue states outperformed was in gross domestic product growth, clocking an average 2.5% increase from 2009 to 2010 vs. red states' 2.2%. State GDP figures for 2011 won't come out until June.

Home prices: People living in liberal areas suffered the most when it came to housing prices. Over the past year, the housing price index fell 3.5% in blue states. The index edged up by 0.03% in conservative states. Nationwide, it was down 2.4%, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency's House Price Index. Over the past five years, housing prices in red states fell 7.5%, but by 18.5% in blue states.

Gas prices: Blue states also suffer when it comes to gasoline. All but one of the 10 most expensive gas states voted for Obama in 2008. In contrast, all but one of the 10 cheapest gas states voted for McCain, according to gasoline price data from the AAA's fuel gauge report. On average, blue state prices were 5% higher than those in red states.

What explains these different economic outcomes?

One possibility is that red states tend to be more business-friendly. George Mason University's Mercatus Center recently. "But in swing states, it's a different story. Republicans may be able to make some hay out of economic distress in swing states that Obama carried in 2008, such as Florida and Nevada."

Sabato did note that Virginia is doing well "and the Obama White House and campaign should be able to use the good news to their benefit in November."

There's also the question of how the faster growth in red states, if it continues, could affect the election. One possibility is that their economic speed could boost the nation's overall mood and wind up helping Obama's re-election chances.

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Tyler Cowen, Koch Brothers Funding, Mercatus Center, George Mason ...
[www.nakedcapitalism.com]...

7 tháng 5, 2018 – Recent documents disclose how private money, from the Koch Brothers, among others, curtailed academic freedom at George Mason University, its Antonin Scalia Law School, and its associated Mercatus Center. ... George Mason, they also have a stable of Affiliated Scholars, scattered around .

So, if we can accurately conclude that a state's level of wealth is associated with the dominant political party (BIG "if" ), how do we know whether the level of wealth was generated by the dominant party or whether the dominant party is chosen as a result of the level of wealth?

And why would wealth be a measure of how well a state is run anyway? How about measuring education or elder care or animal welfare or environmental protection?

Big deal if a state has money. It's how they got the money and what they're doing with it that counts.

One recent bit of history though: This country's economy was devastated after 8 years of George W.'s Republican policies. And now, after 8 years of recovery under a Democratic president,
the current Republican POTUS is already having to bail out our farmers with billions of taxpayer money due to his cute little tariff escapades. Oh yes 4.1% GDP growth. RIGHT. While we're cutting food stamps for the handicapped and elderly. Someday soon maybe all of us will have had the experience of seeing an elder person cry because he/she lost a home and there's no money to pay rent or buy food. That's already happening, but will inevitably increase at an exponential rate as we factor in Trump's tariff-driven inflation.

And who stands to gain from an inflated economy? Well, anyone with lots of real estate of course. Who do we know who has lots of real estate, like for instance golf courses and hotels and such?



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 07/29/2018 07:35AM by suncloud.