Blue Money

Thank goodness football season is here. I was getting tired of trying to keep track of who is “number 1” in what’s become the GOP presidential candidate national sport. Mitt once held the pole position. But now Rick Perry has surged to the lead, replacing Michele Bachmann, who yesterday’s news. It’s hard to keep my scorecard up to date. Frankly, I’m waiting for Sarah to step forward and put to rest the “will she or won’t she” saga that has kept me absolutely riveted all summer long. Mr. Perry has the backing of evangelicals and seems to be the latest darling of my Tea Party buddies. And with good reason. His record of job creation, as George W. Bush’s successor as governor of the great state of Texas, appears impressive at a time of jobless recession, even if many of those new jobs are low-paying service industry and state government positions. Hey, minimum wage work is better than no work at all! But Rick is more than a one-trick pony. He’s a big advocate of states-rights, shifting “democracy” to the more efficient local level and away from wasteful Washington. Sounds logical to me. After all, Texans receive only $0.94 from the federal government for every tax dollar they send to Washington. No wonder Perry is “Fed Up!” as the title of his book exclaims. And I’m sure that “small government” politicians in other red states are equally outraged. Senator Jim Demint’s South Carolina grabs $1.35 from Washington for every dollar its citizens pay in federal taxes; Mitch McConnell’s and Rand Paul’s Kentucky collects $1.51, Sarah Palin’s Alaska gets back $1.84, Haley Barbour’s Mississippi hauls in $2.02 and John McCain’s Arizona attracts $1.19. What? Wait a minute, that can’t be right! So, who is subsidizing all of these reliably Republican strongholds? How about Nancy Pelosi’s California, which receives just $0.78 for every federal tax dollar paid by it’s tree hugging, pot smoking residents. Chuck Schumer’s labor union-coddling New York gets only $0.79 and John Kerry’s Obamacare-loving Massachusetts attracts but $0.82. Sounds suspiciously like a communist-style transfer of wealth from wealthy to poor. And patriotic Americans like Mr. Perry just can’t stand for that.