Good points all. Another response to the "red states are poorer" argument is that the red states vote for a party that opposes redistributive policies. So the first statement is that these "small government" states are taking more than their share of federal tax revenues; the response is that the excess represents social programs aimed at the poor; and the refined statement is that the anti-social program states are taking more than their share of social spending.

Of course, you all make the additional statistical fallacy of assuming that just because a state went "red" in the last election, that means that the people of the state are overwhelmingly conservatives. As we all know, most Americans, especially poor Americans, don't vote. The poor Americans statistically less likely to vote are also statistically more likely to be Democrats. It's not germane to the discussion of whether block grants are bad (and I agree with you that they are, because they misallocate resources. I also think the government shouldn't be trying to allocate said resources in the first place, but if it's going to do so, the least it can do is allocate them to the people who need them most.), but it is important to any discussion of the fairness of crying foul when "red" states get more money than "blue" states. As usual, I have more on my blog.

I wouldn't argue that everyone in red states are conservatives-- only their elected leaders speaking on their behalf and complaining about "welfare moms" while pocketing defensee contracts and extra block grant money for their supporters.

I followed Calpundit's thread with interest, and am pleased to see your nuance here. It's not a discussion that lends itself to quick, clear conclusions. Many of the red states are rural, and receive various subsidies--for farming, say. But those benefits are spread out among the population evenly.

But I think Amy unwittingly points to something particularly pointed underneath all this: the red states are poorer, but they also are more conservative--in some cases overwhelmingly so. Those conservative poor have been sold a bill of goods by this administration. But they're not voting their pocketbook, they're voting God. They don't support the President because they believe the wealthy really need tax cuts; they support him because they think the left is immoral.

This is the greatest failing of the left over the past 23 years--allowing themselves to be branded immoral.

The left is just as guilty of branding the right immoral as the right is of doing so to the left. There are plenty of people who vote Democrat because they believe that Republicans are evil. I don't see how that really matters. And even if it did, as far as I can tell, there's no real way to stop it. No matter what lefties do, their opponents on the right are always going to tell people that they're immoral, and vice versa. I don't consider it a great failing when there's little or nothing they could have done to "succeed" in the battle for moral superiority in the public eye.

The left is just as guilty of branding the right immoral as the right is of doing so to the left.

Not exactly. In terms of success in communicating their vision as the "moral" vision, Republicans have been dominant over the past generation. From 1932 through the civil rights era, Democrats dominated the "morality" issue. They successfully wedded economic justice and morality. During the 70s, as liberals were perceived as being out of control, the Republicans pinned them with a kind of social decay.

That's very much been in place since the 70s. Where in the 1950s Democrats would have been called the "moral" party (and the Christian party), now Republicans would be identified that way. In a very real sense, the association of morality and politics is necessary to forge an agenda and push it through.

The Democrats you cite who call Republicans evil are fringe players in national politics. Only recently have the Democrats as a party started to question this; during the 18 months following 9/11, they praised the President's "moral clarity" and endured abuse for their own "treasonous" perspective. When was the last time you heard a national Democrat declare that a Republican who didn't agree with him (her) was giving aid to the enemy? And yet Ashcroft and Rumsfeld (not to mention Delay and other Congressional Republicans) have both questioned Dems. You can only get away with that if you control the nation's moral compass.

Minor error -- you meant to write

...having a lower AVERAGE income does not therefore mean you have more VERY POOR people needing social spending...