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On June 30 2025 02:00 Billyboy wrote: Maybe that is why Trump does so much golfing and such little working and his version of fiscal responsibility is taking in less income (tax cut for the rich) and spending much more on non revenue creators like the boarder and military. Also, why Ice is operating much more in the blue states if the the red voters have more say.
Nor sure how tongue in cheek this is supposed to be but a) ICE goes where the highest illegal immigrant population are (which are alo the places most likely to complain) and B) as I think oBlade has explained before, ICE has to try more aggressive tactics when stste and local authorities won't cooperate. It's actually worse for "innocent" illegal aliens because they are more likely to be rounded up in a drag net when ICE has to show up more at businesses than at jails or prisons.
On June 27 2025 14:29 oBlade wrote: Grocery stores could potentially have a public option, it sounds good in theory, but on closer inspection that seems stupid for the government to get into when it specifically has public assistance at every level already. NYC has food banks, they have local assistance, state assistance, and of course they have SNAP and WIC which are federal. And the government subsidizes farming and food production in certain ways too.
What do people do with assistance? They load up on lobster, steak, and soda, and use their disposable income on flagship phones. Or they use the benefits to clean out grocery stores of all the cases of bottled water, open and dump the water out in the parking lot, return the bottles for the 10 cents deposits and use the redeemed cash to buy drugs and go use them at a government-designated site.
Like I'm sorry if personal taxi burritos cost $30 in NYC but the answer is not raise minimum wage to $30 and whatever else is in the socialist pipe dream. Eat something else.
The closest analogue is ABC states. States that control liquor/spirit sales. Because that, like food, is something people directly consume. If you, like me, are from somewhere where the state monopolizes retail sales of liquor/spirits, the effect is you don't notice anything. But that's because it's a monopoly. On paper the alcohol is supposedly more expensive than other states, because they jack it up a little to use as state revenue, in practice it's not noticed because the state liquor stores are the only place to get liquor so it's just like a local cost of living quirk (like oh housing is a bit higher in this state than that state, gas is a bit less expensive in this one, alcohol is this much here).
Prices are higher than they otherwise would be because the state wants tax money and wants to discourage rampant alcoholism. This is different than like a state running a train/bus service, which is a public good or necessity, which the market couldn't otherwise fill due to the investment needed, roadblocks involved in public projects, and low margins or operating losses.
If you were to open public supermarkets with the goal of undercutting actual businesses that exist on the taxpayer's dime, basically that scheme is assbackwards. You have consumers paying taxes, and businesses paying taxes, to fund a public grocery store that erodes the very tax revenue that supports it.
The welfare queen myth is a perfidious lie that doesn't exist in the real world. Stop propagating it. Nobody gets lobsters from the food bank and then spends their money on (other) luxury items.
Have you ever lived in America?
No, I haven't. So please educate me on how if I lived there I would frequently share the line at the supermarket with people using food stamps to buy lobster... and you aren't still talking about that one case of food stamp trafficking more than 10 years ago?
Don't get me wrong. I'm sure people with food stamps sometimes save them up and buy a fancy meal for a special occasion. And maybe that's lobster. But that's their choice. They probably go without other stuff to afford that special birthday meal. They can budget that the same way you or I budget that.
Food stamps are loaded onto a debit card that can be used for basically anything you can put in your mouth (SNAP is different). The allowances are actually quite generous. I qualified for them after I stopped working and left thousands unspent because I just couldn’t buy enough expensive food to get through it all. My spending habits didn’t change whether I was spending taxpayer money or my own and so I didn’t switch to the steak and lobster diet. But after eating normally for a bit I could have done a government funded lobster month.
None of that is to say that the program shouldn’t exist. It’s a godsend for people who need it and America is an absurdly wealthy nation that spends its money in absurd ways (golden dome for example). If we’re cutting wasteful government spending then the one that makes sure people have enough to eat but sometimes goes too far is not going to be a priority. Anyone who treats it as a priority when it comes to waste is likely motivated by ideology rather than any kind of objective analysis.
But to the core point, the benefits are unrestricted and extremely generous. It’s absolutely nothing like my understanding of the system in the UK. If you normally have brand name more expensive preprepared food then you can continue to do so without change once on food stamps. If you practice any kind of grocery budgeting and cook your own meals then you can very quickly afford “luxury” items.
SNAP works a lot more like people think food stamps work. It has a prescription for specific items your family is entitled to like baby formula if you have a baby. But food stamps is unrestricted.
Hard to believe, honestly. What was your monthly allotment? Google says an individual is getting a couple hundred bucks a month, on average. Maybe if you are eating beans and toast and chip buttys regularly you could splurge on a month of lobster but I doubt you could buy it frequently.
Also Ive been to Walmart. I see what lower income people have in their cart. It’s not steak and lobster, it’s Doritos and Mountain Dew. Nobody is gaming the system by giving themselves diabetes and obesity.
Family of 4, got about $2,500/month for food. Wasn't able to spend anything close to that, though it's not like I was trying to use it all. Gotta remember this is on top of WIC (what I meant when I said SNAP earlier) etc. so there's already an amount of bread/milk/cheese/fruit/veg covered there before you even start using the food stamps. I assume at some point they'll just claw back the unspent money but there is an lot of it. But I've paid an awful lot more in taxes, if the government has too much money then that makes sense, they've got a lot of mine. Some programs are state specific so your mileage may vary.
That sounds like a rather insane amount of money to spend on food. My wife and I don't hold back on spending on food, and if we go out a fair amount, we'll spend maybe 600 euros a month between the two of us. 2500 USD is roughly double that per person. It is also considerably more than the maximum unemployment allowance awarded here in Spain per person (if both my wife and I were to lose our jobs simultaneously we would be entitled to that amount each, though), which is meant for food, but also rent and any other costs (not education or healthcare, which are public).
So yeah, that is not what I was thinking of. I clearly remember John Oliver doing a special on SNAP and the max amount was far lower and you had to jump through all kinds of hoops to even be eligible. A quick search also leads me to see the same numbers BJ mentions, a maximum allowance of 292 per person. That is what I thought we were talking about when discussing food stamps, but yeah, I was mistaken. Apparently US social security is in a reasonable place, despite all the news to the contrary? Or maybe this is a special program that only white people can access?
It's always been far more generous than popularly perceived because it's a political football.
On June 30 2025 00:37 Billyboy wrote: I'm not sure on the city level, but by state level it is very clear that the Red ones use more than the blue.
1. Federal Funding Received vs. Taxes Paid (Net Balance) This is the most common metric used:
Republican-led states generally receive more federal dollars per dollar they send in taxes.
Democratic-led states often contribute more in taxes than they get back.
Example Data (based on recent studies, such as by Rockefeller Institute, WalletHub, and Pew): State $ Received per $1 Sent in Federal Taxes Governor’s Party (as of data year) Mississippi ~$2.09 Republican West Virginia ~$2.03 Republican Kentucky ~$2.00 Republican New Mexico ~$1.90 Democrat New York ~$0.91 Democrat California ~$0.99 Democrat Massachusetts ~$0.83 Democrat
So, many red states are "net takers" while many blue states are "net donors".
2. Why This Happens Several reasons:
Red states tend to have lower income levels, so they pay less in federal income tax.
They may receive more in social programs like Medicaid, SNAP, and infrastructure aid.
Many have large rural areas that rely more heavily on federal support.
3. Federal Spending Categories Republican-led states may get more from:
Military spending (many bases are in Southern/red states)
Agricultural subsidies
Social assistance programs due to higher poverty
Democratic-led states tend to get more:
Scientific research grants
Urban transit funding
Tech and infrastructure innovation
Summary Red (Republican) states tend to receive more in federal funding than they pay.
Blue (Democratic) states tend to pay more in taxes than they receive back.
Not sure why you picked the states you did instead of just using the list.
There are a number of reasons why this simplistic metric is not helpful. For example, there's no reason include military bases imo, and several red states, like Floirda, are places people move AFTER they made their money and paid their taxes (although Florida, right wing boogeyman state, is still a net contributor).
Now obviously evey state wants their nose in the trough. But I've always found this metric too reductive to be useful. There are three additional reasons for that.
1) collapsing huge businesses to a single state. Apple and other tech companies do business everywhere but iirc for this state metric thst all gets lumped in as "California"
2) Many states have industries (like ag) that almost eveyone has an interest in helping subsidize, "rescue", "protect" pick your reason
3) even as politics have changed many of these states have probably been net takers or contributors for a very long time, so it's not clear what the point is? Has there been a single year in the history of the Republic where NY was not a net donor, and yet it used to be a more competitive state, even back in the early 1800s. So what's the point here?
4) internal state dynamics. Maybe I'm remembering wrong, but I think the blue areas of many red states are the places a lot of that federal money is going.
People try make some partisan point out of this but the truth is, bluster aside, pretty much no state would take a deal whete they keep their own tax money if they got nothing from the federal government in exchange
Edit: holy typos
Chat GPT picked em, I've found it is a decent tool when you do not have time to a whole pile of resources. He asked and I was looking for a non partisan answer and that was what came out. I'm sure it is not perfect, but I think there is a pervasive myth that the blues are on the governments tits taking from the hard working reds and at best it is a tie but more likely reds get more. Is it justified? Probably in a lot of cases yes. Is it strange that the Reds then HaTe dA GoveRnment, yes it is.
Everyone should be looking for more value from their government not flat more or less.
On June 30 2025 02:00 Billyboy wrote: Maybe that is why Trump does so much golfing and such little working and his version of fiscal responsibility is taking in less income (tax cut for the rich) and spending much more on non revenue creators like the boarder and military. Also, why Ice is operating much more in the blue states if the the red voters have more say.
Nor sure how tongue in cheek this is supposed to be but a) ICE goes where the highest illegal immigrant population are (which are alo the places most likely to complain) and B) as I think oBlade has explained before, ICE has to try more aggressive tactics when stste and local authorities won't cooperate. It's actually worse for "innocent" illegal aliens because they are more likely to be rounded up in a drag net when ICE has to show up more at businesses than at jails or prisons.
Fairly, but also it is because a lot of the illegals in red states are farm workers and no legals want to do it. Or just workers in various businesses that donate or "couldn't be competitive without them".
The reality is instead of good thoughtful solutions you have performative shit that makes for great reels/tiktoks to stoke the rage in both parties.
The military base makes up the difference myth is pretty easily disproven. Even before you realize that they are there as a direct result of the inherent poverty of red states, that their budgets incentive is to then continue to be poverty states, that direct fact of then being poverty states causes their Healthcare and social security takes to be much higher than wealthy states. The only way to justify wanting people to go hungry to avoid some people taking advantage of the system is to pursue cruelty.
The biggest kicker about the "they give the poor too much money for food" is that by any logic that's an incredibly good thing for the US to do. Nutrition is by far the only reliable way to improve a populations outcome. The usa has as a foreign policy objective from the great depression to open up markets to increase consumption of us agriculture as a way to expand national secur8ty and attack the national security of other nations.
The most addictive substance in the world is food.
It would make sense to have some rules about what kind of foods you could get. But then, but my freedumb, and also people find a way around it. Selling them at a huge loss or whatever.
highest GDP per capita country in the world, should have the best school and the healthiest people. Those are goals you would think you could get everyone behind.
Getting told what kind of food you can or can't buy with food stamps seems very insulting to me... Personally I find the fact that you get assistance that you can only use for food allready very demeaning.
"Oh, you ran into financial hardship? Must be because your an imbecile that can't handle his own money."
While this surely is a concern with some recipients of goverment aid, such people should get more personal assistance by social workers that help them budget in the future instead of treating everyone that needs assistance like an imbecile.
A sprawling budget bill in the US Senate could cut health insurance coverage for nearly 12 million Americans and add $3.3tn (£2.4tn) in debt, according to new estimates.
The assessment from the Congressional Budget Office, a non-partisan federal agency, could complicate Republican efforts to pass President Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act in the coming days.
The spending plan narrowly cleared a preliminary vote in the Senate late on Saturday after party leaders scrambled to arm-twist hesitant members of their rank and file.
One defector, Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina, announced he would not seek reelection after voting against the president's signature legislation.
Democratic lawmakers have led criticism of the bill. The CBO numbers calculate $1tn in cuts to healthcare funding if the measure passes.
The latest version of the bill was advanced in a 51-49 Senate vote on Saturday night. Two Republicans - Tillis and Rand Paul of Kentucky - joined Democrats in opposing the move.
Paul has said he opposes the bill because it raises the US debt limit. Tillis has said the bill would cost his state billions of dollars in healthcare funding.
While senators debated the bill on Sunday, it is unclear whether it has enough support to ultimately pass.
Republicans have a small majority in the Senate, holding 53 seats. Vice-President JD Vance has the tie-breaker vote so the party can only afford three defectors.
Democratic senators used chamber rules to force a 16-hour reading of the nearly 1,000-page bill in an attempt to delay a vote on its passage.
Under Senate rules, lawmakers now have 20 hours allocated to debate the bill. It is expected that Democrats will use all of their time to further delay a vote, while Republicans try to speed up the process.
Lawmakers could also propose amendments to the bill. If the revised bill passes the Senate, it still must return to the House of Representatives for final approval before landing on the president's desk for signing into law.
Trump has pushed for the bill to clear Congress before a self-imposed 4 July deadline. The White House said failure to pass it would be the "ultimate betrayal".
On Saturday, he called the Senate's vote to advance the bill a "great victory".
a real Pyrrhus bill for the Pyrrhus POTUS we have here. shafting poor people and deficit spending, golden era!
ramming this massively consequential abomination of a bill through within such a short time frame is the cherry on top.
when people start "feeling" the effects of this bill, they will know actual betrayal.
But oBlade promised just they cut 800 billion from the budget that feeds medical expense for poor people, it doesn't mean that the poor people healthcare would be in jeopardy.
On June 30 2025 16:21 Velr wrote: Getting told what kind of food you can or can't buy with food stamps seems very insulting to me... Personally I find the fact that you get assistance that you can only use for food allready very demeaning.
"Oh, you ran into financial hardship? Must be because your an imbecile that can't handle his own money."
While this surely is a concern with some recipients of goverment aid, such people should get more personal assistance by social workers that help them budget in the future instead of treating everyone that needs assistance like an imbecile.
Sad reality is that people with cognitive impairment - like imbeciles - should receive help by default because it's not straightforward to navigate oneself in society at all. All the predatory tactics use makes them the most vulnerable and it's getting less and less easy to discern the genuine from the scam. People need systems to get help from and not simply a "baseline survival package", morale boosters like a halfway decent meal or being able to eat out or whatever goes a long way for a human. Feels like they belong. I guess for some people empathy really is a very lowly allocated attribute. Not necessarily bad, sometimes difficult choices need to be made, but when talking about the lowest common denominator, they seem to come short more often than not.
I don't know how thorough social work is in the US. I find it to be quite extensive in Belgium but it seems that we still can't get all the gaps closed off.
At this point, we can only hope that the inevitable loss of healthcare, food assistance, and general quality of life disproportionately hurts Republicans, given that they're the cause of this.
On June 30 2025 21:03 Uldridge wrote: Yes, let's hope for malfortunes for people. Let's fuel the culture wars! Do you have your hay fork ready and your burning torch?
If a policy or general direction of travel is exceedingly likely to hurt some folk, it’s hardly ‘culture wars’ to rather see it hurt those who advocate for it rather than those who did not.
The "didn't we tell you", leopard ate my face attitude isn't fueling culture wars? Show compassion for those that have been misguided, I believe that's a positive trait that's been around for a few millenia. I even believe it's been used in a couple of those books that we have been basing our societies on. But what the hell, let's let them get some of their own medicine. Dumbass hicks.
On June 30 2025 21:43 Uldridge wrote: The "didn't we tell you", leopard ate my face attitude isn't fueling culture wars? Show compassion for those that have been misguided, I believe that's a positive trait that's been around for a few millenia. I even believe it's been used in a couple of those books that we have been basing our societies on. But what the hell, let's let them get some of their own medicine. Dumbass hicks.
The problem is that they are totally fine with it hurting other people. Then they only think it is bad that it hurts them, but often still double down on the thing in general.
That makes it really hard to show compassion to them. They fuck shit up for everyone, were told that that what they do will indeed fuck shit up for everyone including themselves, they still do the thing, and once they go surprised Pikachu that it actually hurts themselves and not just other people, we need to feel sorry for them?
I would still prefer that they hadn't done the thing to begin with, but the hope is that once it hurts themselves, they will notice that the thing is a bad thing, and stop doing it.
Look, these people can't help themselves. They're like special needs people. Imbeciles if you will. They need special care and help. They're not capable of undersranding certain things at certain levels. So you don't attack them for being incompetent and making the wrong choice because they can only think about what might be best for them without doing the slightest due dilligence and therefore it blowing up in their faces again and again. The botton line is: they're people who's votes are as impactful as your vote. Get them aboard and you have a very powerful hammer to wield. They should be easy to grab ideologically, no? They just look out for themselves... I'd be very surprised that no marketing firm has ever captured this population segment as a market to cater to.
On June 30 2025 21:03 Uldridge wrote: Yes, let's hope for malfortunes for people. Let's fuel the culture wars! Do you have your hay fork ready and your burning torch?
Is it wrong to hope a terrorist accidentally blows themself up while arming their explosives?
And before you complain that voting Republican is way different from being a terrorist, you're right. No terrorist in the history of the world could kill as many people as cutting Medicaid from 10 million people is certain to.
Time to round them up! Collectively soft cleansing 10 million people, worse than Hitler, I'm sure? Maybe calling them that (again) might help soften their stance on their fellow citizen.
On June 30 2025 21:03 Uldridge wrote: Yes, let's hope for malfortunes for people. Let's fuel the culture wars! Do you have your hay fork ready and your burning torch?
If a policy or general direction of travel is exceedingly likely to hurt some folk, it’s hardly ‘culture wars’ to rather see it hurt those who advocate for it rather than those who did not.
On June 30 2025 21:43 Uldridge wrote: The "didn't we tell you", leopard ate my face attitude isn't fueling culture wars? Show compassion for those that have been misguided, I believe that's a positive trait that's been around for a few millenia. I even believe it's been used in a couple of those books that we have been basing our societies on. But what the hell, let's let them get some of their own medicine. Dumbass hicks.
The problem is that they are totally fine with it hurting other people. Then they only think it is bad that it hurts them, but often still double down on the thing in general.
That makes it really hard to show compassion to them. They fuck shit up for everyone, were told that that what they do will indeed fuck shit up for everyone including themselves, they still do the thing, and once they go surprised Pikachu that it actually hurts themselves and not just other people, we need to feel sorry for them?
I would still prefer that they hadn't done the thing to begin with, but the hope is that once it hurts themselves, they will notice that the thing is a bad thing, and stop doing it.
This is what I was going for, thank you. At some point, people will run out of patience and compassion and good-faith discussion, as the opposition continues to try punching everyone in the face. Eventually, we can only hope that they punch themselves more frequently than they punch us, and start to realize that it hurts.
On June 30 2025 22:09 Uldridge wrote: Look, these people can't help themselves. They're like special needs people. Imbeciles if you will. They need special care and help. They're not capable of undersranding certain things at certain levels. So you don't attack them for being incompetent and making the wrong choice because they can only think about what might be best for them without doing the slightest due dilligence and therefore it blowing up in their faces again and again. The botton line is: they're people who's votes are as impactful as your vote. Get them aboard and you have a very powerful hammer to wield. They should be easy to grab ideologically, no? They just look out for themselves... I'd be very surprised that no marketing firm has ever captured this population segment as a market to cater to.
Hanlon's Razor may have applied in 2016, but it shouldn't have applied in 2020 and it definitely shouldn't have applied after 2024. Ignorance is no longer an excuse, and it's more than fair to assume malice at this point.
Do you honestly think that these people are able to do a comprehensive impact assessment on a systemic level when they vote for a guy who says that tarrifs are going to bring back back breaking jobs and who says eggs will cost less? Do you know people like that? Because I do, and it's always very apparent when these types of people open their mouths what their type of ideology is going to be. Many people are stupid, don't forget that. Many stupid people also wish for malice on others. I don't fault them for that because they're stupid. They don't really understand impacts of anything other than when it hits them in the face, and even then.
On June 30 2025 22:52 Uldridge wrote: Time to round them up! Collectively soft cleansing 10 million people, worse than Hitler, I'm sure? Maybe calling them that (again) might help soften their stance on their fellow citizen.
It doesn't matter how nice or polite you are to them, they'll never learn until it's their faces getting eaten by the leopard. And even then, they often keep cheering the leopard on.
EPT
