The Radio Equalizer: Brian Maloney

12 February 2005

Blue States Attacked By Bush Budget?

Is there really an official policy underway to punish "blue" states in the new proposed federal budget?

Interesting that the "blue" media felt the need to see if there was a way to explore this. Of course they find the "outcome" they were seeking!

The problem is that is sounds like more "sore loser" whining from the media, even the Dems interviewed are a little reluctant to embrace this conspiracy theory.


(Boston Globe)

With the proposal to eliminate or reduce funding for home-heating assistance, the Northeast would be especially hard hit by the president's budget-cutting, said Senator Jon Corzine, Democrat of New Jersey.

''People will ask me whether I think it's political or not," Corzine said. ''I think it's just the philosophy of this administration not to have the government involved."

Representative Barney Frank, a Newton Democrat, said that while the budget may not have been designed to hurt Democratic-leaning ''blue" states, ''they can do it without trying," because many of the budget cuts tend to hit urbanized areas. ''It's not just red state/blue state, but blue communities within the red states," he said. ''Their ideology reflects that."

Chad Kolton, a spokesman for the Office of Management and Budget, said much of the trend is due to demographics. ''It's not a reflection of any political decision, by and large, because these tend to be mandatory [funding] programs," such as Medicaid, he said. Kolton and independent budget analysts also noted that the funding projections do not include Bush's proposed cuts in farm assistance, a highly controversial idea that -- if approved by Congress -- would probably hit rural, Republican-voting states with large grain farms the hardest.

2 Comments:

  • I don't think that Bush is trying to punish Deomcratic states for voting against him, but I do think that Democrats should punish Republican states for voting for Bush. Welfare states like Alaska and Wyoming should be made to pay their own way rather than taking more federal services than they pay for. Read Urban Archipelago (http://www.urbanarchipelago.com/) for more info.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 13 February, 2005 01:50  

  • Excuse me...there are people living in Alaska and Wyoming. We give people all kinds of federal services when they can't pay for it. We shouldn't have state borders used as arbitary markers for that aid.

    You want to have an argument on fairness..let's discuss states that collect no state tax but accept federal aid.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at 14 February, 2005 09:10  

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