5 ms·

Eh, rural areas actually receive more in federal funding than they pay in taxes while paying less in taxes anyway due to decreased costs of living. Additionally

by c3534l 10y ago

Eh, rural areas actually receive more in federal funding than they pay in taxes while paying less in taxes anyway due to decreased costs of living. Additionally, the US heavily subsidizes farming and funds infrastructure development for rural areas that are not available to more populated states and areas, such as gas, electric, and internet services. Economically speaking, rural areas also disproportionately benefit from projects like interstate highways, public water infrastructure, and bridges. Additionally, rural areas also consume, by far, the most in entitlement resources. And finally, rural areas are disproportionately represented in government, to the point that someone in a city like New York gets nearly half the amount of votes as someone in Montana, and also greatly suffering in the Senate which is not awarded on the basis of population. To sum up, rural areas pay no net taxes, receive economically beneficial subsidies and policies, and are given more political rights than people who live in urban areas. The idea that they're being screwed in a nation where they're the ones with all the control is absurd.

throwaway729 10y ago
I think the key observation is this: everything you say is true, and yet many rural areas still have terrible economies. It's hard to square that circle -- that rural areas are heavily subsidized but yet still economically depressed and under-served. Hence, comments like the one from VLM above. Of course, it all boils down to economic fundamentals: cities and metro areas create a network effect that's difficult or impossible to compete with, no matter how well subsidized rural areas are. The fact that rural areas suffer in spite of their greater representation and massive economic subsidies is a difficult pill for a person from a rural area to swallow. A "they are screwing us" mentality is a much more compelling narrative.
- JoeAltmaier 10y ago
  Are the subsidies over-rated? We have energy coops (which we pay for entirely); we have a road system (the most expensive parts used by everybody); there are some agricultural supports (insurance programs?) but only a tiny fraction of rural residents are in farming. What else?
  - throwaway729 10y ago
    > Are the subsidies over-rated? First, I don't think so. Second, an over-rated subsidy is still a subsidy. So even if they are over-rated, that's still no proof of VLM's statement -- it's more just looking the gift horse in the mouth. > We have energy coops (which we pay for entirely) This isn't true everywhere. > we have a road system (the most expensive parts used by everybody) Perhaps for the interstate system you could make this case. I'm not sure. Certainly there are cases where the interstate system inconvenience cities for the benefit of an extremely tiny but politically powerful rural district. The same happens with state highways. But at the state level, rural roads are heavily subsidized. State highways are typically extremely important to rural areas, and those are mostly funded by urban and suburban tax bases. > but only a tiny fraction of rural residents are in farming But farming is still very important to local economies in rural areas, even if it's no longer a major employer. Also, "some" is a bit of an understatement -- half a trillion in federal funds over half a decade. And that's just the main farm bill -- excluding other federal and state assistance programs. > What else? * Schools for sure. Most states heavily subsidize rural schools in their funding formulas. States and the federal gov't also subsidize rural schools through programs that are not even accounted for by these funding formulas -- e.g. tuition waivers and sometimes even salaries for teachers that teach in rural schools. * Federal and state entitlement programs -- this one isn't even close to debatable. * Political representation. Again, not even close to debatable. I consider this independently of all of the other indirect economic benefits that stem from the representation for a lot of reasons. To give one, the conservative social agenda disproportionately targets and complicates the lives of the non-white non-christians concentrated within cities.
    - stonemetal 10y ago
      >half a trillion in federal funds over half a decade Don't multiply to make it sound like something. That works out to less than 100 million a year. To three significant digits that is 0% of the budget.
      - amdavidson 10y ago
        Half a trillion over half a decade is 100 billion per year. I make no claim to the accuracy of the original statistic, but if that is the case and the federal budget is 3.7 trillion [0] that is 2.7 percent of the budget. 0: https://www.cbo.gov/publication/51110 https://www.cbo.gov/publication/51110
- baddox 10y ago
  Then could it be that the subsidies are the only thing making rural life livable for many people? In other words, without the subsidy, the economy would be so depressed that people would move to cities.
  - seanp2k2 10y ago
    And they just voted in an administration who wants to take away all of their subsidies. Education in rural areas can also be sorely lacking.
    - throwaway729 10y ago
      Well, yes and no. They voted in an administration who wants to take away all of the subsidies for their poor population. But they also voted in an administration who wants to massively subsidize their way of life at the expense of the rest of the tax base. Trump's basic economic plan is to use the carrot of access to America's rich suburban and urban markets as a mechanism for increasing domestic manufacturing (largely benefiting rural areas). So suburban and urban residents will be subsidizing artificial marketplaces that inflate the prices they themselves pay for goods. His major governmental program will be a transportation infrastructure overhaul that will very likely disproportionately be paid for by suburban/rural areas and benefit rural areas. And more importantly, those rural voters consistently vote for state governments that rob the tax bases of suburban and urban areas to pay for infrastructure that rural areas can't pay for on their own. Particularly for education and transportation infrastructure. Basically, rural communities in the US are leeches who use their disproportionate access to political power in order to subsidize their unsustainable way of life on the dime of suburban and urban tax payers. And then have the audacity to claim the opposite.
      - fourthark 10y ago
        And yet, where does the food and water come from?
        throwaway729 10y ago
- eli_gottlieb 10y ago
  > I think the key observation is this: everything you say is true, and yet many rural areas still have terrible economies. Well yes, because the actual physical capital (machines, skilled labor, etc) is concentrated in cities. Increasingly so, in fact, as the economy has become dominated by monopolies and oligopolies. http://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/junejulyaug-2016/populism-with-a-brain/ http://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/junejulyaug-2016/popul...
  - throwaway729 10y ago
    > Well yes, because the actual physical capital (machines, skilled labor, etc) is concentrated in cities Yes -- particularly with respect to skilled labor. And that's largely a good thing for the working class. The alternative is local monopolies on the labor market. Highly skilled workers flock to areas where employers must compete with one another for a very good reason... > Increasingly so, in fact, as the economy has become dominated by monopolies and oligopolies... The urban population in the United States sky-rocketed over exactly the same period of time that Lynn and Longman romanticize. Although I agree with a lot of their concrete policy proposals, I don't think that those policies would do anything to geographically decentralize economic activity.
    - rplst8 10y ago
      Yeah, centralization of the economy is great. So we all get to sit in traffic. Or walk and live in a closet sized apartment.
    - eli_gottlieb 10y ago
      >Although I agree with a lot of their concrete policy proposals, I don't think that those policies would do anything to geographically decentralize economic activity. There's a difference between urban and megalopolis urban. Lots of jobs used to be in smaller, regional cities that had several employers available.
VLM 10y ago
Yet there's more to life than mere balance of transfer payments and related economic policy. How does your average Boston Clinton voting university academic look at, socially and culturally, someone like a Iowa Trump voting corn farmer? This is rhetorical, I know its with a level of disdain and hate and superiority complex like hasn't been seen since Jim Crow laws were a thing. And note before discussion subject escape velocity was reached, the sub topic was we can't gerrymander rural people into crazy new rules every time the map is redrawn because that would be unfair to them and there is no higher social caste in the USA than the highly respected rural hillbilly so obviously that's a non starter. Back to that topic, I'm surprised there's any opposition at all to some kind of gerrymandering of state borders.
- srtjstjsj 10y ago
  You are drawing a parallel between (a) legalized discrimination and violence against people based on color of their skin, and (b) not caring enough to give even larger handouts to people who claim to be fiercely proud of their independence.
paulddraper 10y ago
> rural areas actually receive more in federal funding than they pay in taxes Citation needed. Inner cities consistently have higher poverty rates than rural or suburban areas.
- cowsandmilk 10y ago
  > Inner cities consistently have higher poverty rates than rural or suburban areas. Citation needed. Urban areas consistently have more millionaires than rural areas. As to poverty rates, in the US, they are definitely higher in rural areas. For a citation, from the abstract of [1]: > Although a larger portion of the poor population resides in urban areas, poverty rates are higher and more persistent in rural areas, and research suggests poverty rates increase as rural areas become increasingly remote. Basically, urban areas have more poor people, but really they have more of all classes of people. If you go to Figure 1, you'll even see that the rate of poverty in category 0 (most urban) is lower than the rate of poverty in all rural categories (4-9)[1]. [1] https://mospace.umsystem.edu/xmlui/handle/10355/2942 https://mospace.umsystem.edu/xmlui/handle/10355/2942
ThrustVectoring 10y ago
A lot of the infrastructure in rural areas benefits cities, anyways. Having a good freeway between Chicago and Indianapolis helps those cities much more than the random cornfields the freeway happens to go through.

by c3534l 10y ago

throwaway729 10y ago

I think the key observation is this: everything you say is true, and yet many rural areas still have terrible economies. It's hard to square that circle -- that rural areas are heavily subsidized but yet still economically depressed and under-served. Hence, comments like the one from VLM above. Of course, it all boils down to economic fundamentals: cities and metro areas create a network effect that's difficult or impossible to compete with, no matter how well subsidized rural areas are. The fact that rural areas suffer in spite of their greater representation and massive economic subsidies is a difficult pill for a person from a rural area to swallow. A "they are screwing us" mentality is a much more compelling narrative.

JoeAltmaier 10y ago
Are the subsidies over-rated? We have energy coops (which we pay for entirely); we have a road system (the most expensive parts used by everybody); there are some agricultural supports (insurance programs?) but only a tiny fraction of rural residents are in farming. What else?
- throwaway729 10y ago
  > Are the subsidies over-rated? First, I don't think so. Second, an over-rated subsidy is still a subsidy. So even if they are over-rated, that's still no proof of VLM's statement -- it's more just looking the gift horse in the mouth. > We have energy coops (which we pay for entirely) This isn't true everywhere. > we have a road system (the most expensive parts used by everybody) Perhaps for the interstate system you could make this case. I'm not sure. Certainly there are cases where the interstate system inconvenience cities for the benefit of an extremely tiny but politically powerful rural district. The same happens with state highways. But at the state level, rural roads are heavily subsidized. State highways are typically extremely important to rural areas, and those are mostly funded by urban and suburban tax bases. > but only a tiny fraction of rural residents are in farming But farming is still very important to local economies in rural areas, even if it's no longer a major employer. Also, "some" is a bit of an understatement -- half a trillion in federal funds over half a decade. And that's just the main farm bill -- excluding other federal and state assistance programs. > What else? * Schools for sure. Most states heavily subsidize rural schools in their funding formulas. States and the federal gov't also subsidize rural schools through programs that are not even accounted for by these funding formulas -- e.g. tuition waivers and sometimes even salaries for teachers that teach in rural schools. * Federal and state entitlement programs -- this one isn't even close to debatable. * Political representation. Again, not even close to debatable. I consider this independently of all of the other indirect economic benefits that stem from the representation for a lot of reasons. To give one, the conservative social agenda disproportionately targets and complicates the lives of the non-white non-christians concentrated within cities.
  - stonemetal 10y ago
    >half a trillion in federal funds over half a decade Don't multiply to make it sound like something. That works out to less than 100 million a year. To three significant digits that is 0% of the budget.
    - amdavidson 10y ago
      Half a trillion over half a decade is 100 billion per year. I make no claim to the accuracy of the original statistic, but if that is the case and the federal budget is 3.7 trillion [0] that is 2.7 percent of the budget. 0: https://www.cbo.gov/publication/51110 https://www.cbo.gov/publication/51110
baddox 10y ago
Then could it be that the subsidies are the only thing making rural life livable for many people? In other words, without the subsidy, the economy would be so depressed that people would move to cities.
- seanp2k2 10y ago
  And they just voted in an administration who wants to take away all of their subsidies. Education in rural areas can also be sorely lacking.
  - throwaway729 10y ago
    Well, yes and no. They voted in an administration who wants to take away all of the subsidies for their poor population. But they also voted in an administration who wants to massively subsidize their way of life at the expense of the rest of the tax base. Trump's basic economic plan is to use the carrot of access to America's rich suburban and urban markets as a mechanism for increasing domestic manufacturing (largely benefiting rural areas). So suburban and urban residents will be subsidizing artificial marketplaces that inflate the prices they themselves pay for goods. His major governmental program will be a transportation infrastructure overhaul that will very likely disproportionately be paid for by suburban/rural areas and benefit rural areas. And more importantly, those rural voters consistently vote for state governments that rob the tax bases of suburban and urban areas to pay for infrastructure that rural areas can't pay for on their own. Particularly for education and transportation infrastructure. Basically, rural communities in the US are leeches who use their disproportionate access to political power in order to subsidize their unsustainable way of life on the dime of suburban and urban tax payers. And then have the audacity to claim the opposite.
    - fourthark 10y ago
      And yet, where does the food and water come from?
      - throwaway729 10y ago
eli_gottlieb 10y ago
> I think the key observation is this: everything you say is true, and yet many rural areas still have terrible economies. Well yes, because the actual physical capital (machines, skilled labor, etc) is concentrated in cities. Increasingly so, in fact, as the economy has become dominated by monopolies and oligopolies. http://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/junejulyaug-2016/populism-with-a-brain/ http://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/junejulyaug-2016/popul...
- throwaway729 10y ago
  > Well yes, because the actual physical capital (machines, skilled labor, etc) is concentrated in cities Yes -- particularly with respect to skilled labor. And that's largely a good thing for the working class. The alternative is local monopolies on the labor market. Highly skilled workers flock to areas where employers must compete with one another for a very good reason... > Increasingly so, in fact, as the economy has become dominated by monopolies and oligopolies... The urban population in the United States sky-rocketed over exactly the same period of time that Lynn and Longman romanticize. Although I agree with a lot of their concrete policy proposals, I don't think that those policies would do anything to geographically decentralize economic activity.
  - rplst8 10y ago
    Yeah, centralization of the economy is great. So we all get to sit in traffic. Or walk and live in a closet sized apartment.
  - eli_gottlieb 10y ago
    >Although I agree with a lot of their concrete policy proposals, I don't think that those policies would do anything to geographically decentralize economic activity. There's a difference between urban and megalopolis urban. Lots of jobs used to be in smaller, regional cities that had several employers available.

VLM 10y ago

Yet there's more to life than mere balance of transfer payments and related economic policy. How does your average Boston Clinton voting university academic look at, socially and culturally, someone like a Iowa Trump voting corn farmer? This is rhetorical, I know its with a level of disdain and hate and superiority complex like hasn't been seen since Jim Crow laws were a thing. And note before discussion subject escape velocity was reached, the sub topic was we can't gerrymander rural people into crazy new rules every time the map is redrawn because that would be unfair to them and there is no higher social caste in the USA than the highly respected rural hillbilly so obviously that's a non starter. Back to that topic, I'm surprised there's any opposition at all to some kind of gerrymandering of state borders.

srtjstjsj 10y ago
You are drawing a parallel between (a) legalized discrimination and violence against people based on color of their skin, and (b) not caring enough to give even larger handouts to people who claim to be fiercely proud of their independence.

paulddraper 10y ago

> rural areas actually receive more in federal funding than they pay in taxes Citation needed. Inner cities consistently have higher poverty rates than rural or suburban areas.

cowsandmilk 10y ago
> Inner cities consistently have higher poverty rates than rural or suburban areas. Citation needed. Urban areas consistently have more millionaires than rural areas. As to poverty rates, in the US, they are definitely higher in rural areas. For a citation, from the abstract of [1]: > Although a larger portion of the poor population resides in urban areas, poverty rates are higher and more persistent in rural areas, and research suggests poverty rates increase as rural areas become increasingly remote. Basically, urban areas have more poor people, but really they have more of all classes of people. If you go to Figure 1, you'll even see that the rate of poverty in category 0 (most urban) is lower than the rate of poverty in all rural categories (4-9)[1]. [1] https://mospace.umsystem.edu/xmlui/handle/10355/2942 https://mospace.umsystem.edu/xmlui/handle/10355/2942

ThrustVectoring 10y ago

A lot of the infrastructure in rural areas benefits cities, anyways. Having a good freeway between Chicago and Indianapolis helps those cities much more than the random cornfields the freeway happens to go through.