Hacker News Reader

Comment by TearsInTheRain | Hacker News Reader

> The productive parts of the country need to unlearn helplessness

  Thats so reductive. the "productive" parts of the country are completely dependent on the "unproductive" ones for anything that isnt software or finance.

View on HN

It's reductive but true. Large parts of the country are tax burdens when we look at the big numbers. For example, California and Oregon make a profit for the USA, while Mississippi and Alabama are more expensive to operate than they return in tax revenue.

This pattern also emerges on a county-by-county level within states. For example, Oregon and Washington are bisected by the Cascades, and the eastern counties are much poorer than the western counties and depend on the profits made in the west.

This uneven burden is an important ingredient in explaining why it's not just rural folks resenting city folks, but also city folks resenting rural folks. It is not fun to know that one's tax dollars are disproportionately funding welfare for folks who politically desire to see one's way of life burnt down because it's immoral or wasteful or simply not as sexist and racist as in the past.

The unproductive parts of the country (let’s not use euphemisms: call them Red States) are in general net recipients of funding from the federal government and the Blue States are net providers. The hated “coastal elites” are literally propping up flyover country. Who is dependent on who?

Yes, but as a counterpoint that was due to offshoring of the domestic manufacturing base which was due to the setup of the international monetary system in 1971/1974 as well as a whole slew of policy decisions which made labor-intensive manufacturing businesses less profitable as a whole in the U.S. because of the necessity of running fiscal deficits and a strong dollar; so the red states were basically sacrificed in the grand scheme of things, not by their own volition.

You're talking about a few states up near the great lakes. And for the record, I'm not sure I'm counting those as the unproductive parts.

There are plenty of other red states which were never industrial. Your Wyomings and, Missisippis, etc.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com