Red State Brand Pork

Via Barefoot and Progressive, at the Daily Beast CNN's Paul Begala takes my Senators, Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul, to the woodshed for Kentucky's massive amount of earmark pork.

Take Kentucky, please. Kentucky has given us Makers Mark bourbon, Churchill Downs, and Kentucky Fried Chicken. Kentucky has also given us Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell, tea party favorite Sen. Rand Paul and House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers. While Rogers was once dubbed the "Prince of Pork" and McConnell has hauled so much pork he's at risk for trichinosis, they are now converts to Sen. Paul's anti-government gospel.  McConnell says President Obama's new budget is "unserious" and "irresponsible" because it merely cuts projected deficits by $1.1 trillion.  “The people who voted for a new direction in November have a five-word response," McConnell said, "We don’t have the money.”

Fair enough.  So here's my two-word response: Defund Kentucky. Cut it off the federal dole. Kentucky is a welfare state to begin with. The conservative Tax Foundation says the Bluegrass State received $1.51 back from Washington for every dollar it paid in federal taxes in 2005 (the most recent data I could find on the Tax Foundation's website.)  We need to listen to the people of Kentucky. They don't want any more federal spending in their state—and they certainly must be appalled by the notion that they're a bunch of welfare queens, living off the taxes paid by blue states like California (which only gets 81 cents back on the dollar), Connecticut (69 cents), Illinois (75 cents) and New York (79 cents).

A report in the Lexington Herald-Leader says 80 percent of Kentucky's Medicaid bill is paid by Washington and more than one in five Kentuckians receives a monthly check from the Social Security System, totaling $8.5 billion a year. Washington also spends over $2 billion a year on flood insurance for Kentuckians, $667 million in crop insurance, and $877 million in mortgage insurance.  Plus the Bluegrass State is home to federal facilities ranging from Ft. Knox to the Department of Energy's Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Paducah. 

And yet Kentucky has a long history of sending "fiscally responsible Republicans" to the House and Senate.  Oh, Kentucky is far from alone in the Red State Porkfest.  Our neighbors, Indiana, Ohio (both get $1.05 for every tax dollar), Missouri ($1.32), Virginia (also like KY at $1.51), West Virginia ($1.76), and Tennessee ($1.27) are all on the federal dole too.  Only Illinois, a blue state that's having a massive deficit problem in part because it gets only 75 cents for every federal tax dollar it sends to Washington, is paying its way (and it's paying dearly for it.)

In fact the states that are having the largest deficit problems are blue states that pay far more in federal taxes than they get in federal programs.  Meanwhile, Republicans in red states collecting fat sacks of pork say California and Illinois have nobody to blame but themselves.  Hey, Texas and New Jersey are facing financial problems under Republican governors too...and you know what?  They pay more in taxes than they get, too.  New Jersey has the worst deal in the country at that respect, they get only 61 cents on the federal tax dollar, Texas 94.  I bet both Chris Christie and Rick Perry would like to get Kentucky's $1.51, huh?

And as much as Rep. Paul Ryan's fiscal nonsense annoys me, he at least has the grace to be representing a district in Wisconsin, a state that gets only 86 cents on the federal tax dollar.  No wonder Gov. Scott Walker wants to take it out of the hides and paychecks of state workers there.  He should start by taking it out of neighboring Iowa's $1.10 per federal tax dollar and Rep. Steve King.

Lot of Red States on the welfare rolls, folks.  And they're the ones complaining loudest that we have to cut spending...for everyone but themselves.