8 ms·

One common feeling (i am from a farming community in Canada) is that tax revenue tends to get siphoned to urban areas. Politicians focus on bigger voting block

• scarmig 9y ago
  I'm sure that is a common feeling. And it probably varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. But in the USA, just as coastal areas subsidize inland areas, typically urban areas within a state subsidize the rural areas. Definitely true of California counties, and I'd be very surprised if this wasn't true of any particular state.
  • nitrogen 9y ago
    This gets brought up a lot on Hacker News as if it's a bad thing. One, I doubt it's as universally true as people think (I'd wager that in Utah, say, an equal chunk of taxes comes from suburban as urban areas), and two, people who can't afford the cities need places to live and those who can need places to vacation and buy food.
    • JBlue42 9y ago
      I don't see them presenting it in a negative, just a fact, and one not understood in rural areas. If you believe in wealth distribution, then richer coastal or urban areas should help out their brethren in the rural areas and spread the money around. It's when those rural brethren then attack the better off coastal / urban folks as stealing their money that things become problematic.
      • grasshopperpurp 9y ago
        Don't forget that red (more rural) states also receive political welfare in the form of the electoral college, so their misguided views carry more weight.
        • JBlue42 9y ago
          Good point. And then complain about being the neglected or down-trodden ones.
    • patmcc 9y ago
      I don't think subsidizing rural living a bad thing, but I do think rural people thinking "I don't get anything from the government, why should I pay taxes" is a bad thing.
    • kazagistar 9y ago
      Its not a bad thing. But it is quite annoying that the places who benefit the most from taxes keep trying to abolish them out of a lack of understanding, and also get an oversized influence in terms of voting value to do so.
    • dsfyu404ed 9y ago
      The city slickers don't want to cut checks to a bunch of hicks and the rednecks don't want to give their money to the city slickers and neither wants the other telling them what to do but our tax system ensures that they can't stay out of each other's business.
      • addicted 9y ago
        Except the “city slickers” have been cutting checks to the “hicks and rednecks” for decades, and furthermore, the “hicks and rednecks” vote against this and rail on the “city slickers”for doing so, while simultaneously falsely believing they cut chekcks to the “city slickers” and also complaining about any time their checks from the “city slickers”are reduced (try campaigning in Iowa on a platform of reducing farm subsidies).
        • dsfyu404ed 9y ago
          And the counterpoint to that is that the city slickers do whatever they want when it comes to running the state. NY-SAFE is a good recent example of the city doing one thing despite the objection (as opposed to apathy) of everywhere else.
    • scarmig 9y ago
      I was responding to a comment that stated that rural folks believe that they subsidize the cities by pointing out that belief was contrary to the reality (at least in the States; I don't know much about Canada's rural vs urban divisions, but I'd guess the dynamics there are similar). As far as what I prefer: I have no issue subsidizing rural areas, within reason. I support everyone having access to basic infrastructure, healthcare, and education, regardless of where they live. Beyond that, there's no particular reason for government to provide incentives to live in one or the other; let the market sort that out.
• sbarre 9y ago
  What's the feeling about the other side of that, which is industry-specific subsidies? While not on the same level as the US, Canada still provides significant farm subsidies, which comes from.. tax revenue!
• noxToken 9y ago
  Depends on the locale, but sometimes just talking to the city works. If you're in a rural area of a smaller town, the mayor or council may not have reason to go to the rural areas. That can seem like they're getting purposefully neglected. The reality is that they may not know of the giant pothole on County Road 18 or the rampant littering in certain areas. It may not always work, but informing the local government of issues might get you what you want. After all, you are the constituent that gets those people into office. Let them help you.
• jacobolus 9y ago
  Rural areas usually get more per capita. It's just that density makes services of all sorts easier and more efficient to provide.