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And if Louisiana's federal desires are consistently decided by more populous states, what is left that motivates Louisiana to remain a member of the United Stat
by bendbro 7y ago
And if Louisiana's federal desires are consistently decided by more populous states, what is left that motivates Louisiana to remain a member of the United States?
- SpicyLemonZest 7y agoI don't understand the premise of the question. Why would Louisiana expect to be able to dictate federal policies against the wishes of other states?
- bendbro 7y agoThey would expect other states to not be able to dictate things against them, not necessarily them against other states. This is looking increasingly likely as political opinion on immigration, gun control, abortion, etc continues to divide further left and right.
- CameronNemo 7y agofree migration, free trade, subsidized education and health, subsidized social security. Louisiana can certainly give all that because they cannot force TX, NY, CA, etc to bow to their whim. But that would be sort of dumb.
- bendbro 7y agoI would assume Louisiana is not interested in the majority of those things. Free trade is the most obvious benefit Louisiana would want, but I wouldn't put it past a state to suspend disbelief and press forward with succession, similar to what happened with Brexit.
- wutbrodo 7y agoFor a start, they get massive transfers of money from more productive states: three dollars for every one that they pay in taxes.
- bendbro 7y agoAgree this is a benefit, but in Louisiana's case this benefit is only 0.5% of their GDP (10 billion aid / 205 billion GDP). In a red state, where business interests more heavily control political power, I don't think federal tax benefits will influence a Brexit-tier decision too much. To put this in blunt terms: there are a ton of impoverished African Americans in these states that receive a large chunk of that federal aid. The segments of Louisiana that don't receive that aid are tax-productive and will not vote against a Brexit-like decision, even if it means that federal aid stops flowing
- wutbrodo 7y ago> this benefit is only 0.5% of their GDP (10 billion aid / 205 billion GDP) This is 5%, not 0.5%. On top of that, your numbers aren't correct: they receive around $20bn net, and their GDP is around $250bn, which means that which means that direct net federal spending is about 8% of their GDP (and gross federal spending is a whopping 20%). These are pretty huge numbers, and they affect the entire state economy, directly affecting the profits of the business owners that you claim wouldn't care.
- bendbro 7y agoDoh, what a stupid error. 8% seems significantly more meaningful, but I would still be curious exactly how that positive 20b is spent.