Congress cuts entirlement spending... but keeps entitling friends

Here's the numbers showing Federal Tax dollar contributions compared to Federal money ditributed back to the states. My favorite: The difference, per capita, between what Red States get, on average, and what Blue states contribute, on average is $17,415 per capita. Put another way, Blue States lost $8,916 per capita while Red stages gained $8,499 per capita. So those of us who foot the bill for King George II must be complete idiots. How can we be the ones paying when we're the ones getting screwed? I think the Blue states should all secede, possibly joining Canada. See the Tax Foundation website for the source for these numbers.

Other interesting points:

• 25 out of 31 total red states get more Federal tax $ than they contribute
• 13 out of 18 blue states give more Federal tax $ than they receive
• The Top 12 Federal tax contributing states are blue
• The Top 8 Recipients of Federal tax money are Red
• Blue states, not including MD and VA (where much of the Federal Gov't. is located), paid $1.4 trillion more than they got back
• Red states received $800 billion more than they paid

In the meantime, Congress cut $39 Billion in entitlement programs while keeping tax cuts for the rich...

Also in the meantime, check the picture to see how you're hard-earned tax dollars are being spent in Iraq. Robert J. Stein Jr. was happily using $100 bills from the Coalition Provisional Authority to wipe his bottom -- he was working for the defense contractor S&K Technologies, a St. Ignatius, Mont., company that had won Army contracts to provide administrative support in Iraq. See the NYT for full story.

So, as you can see, when Congress isn't busy spending $1 trillion on the war in Iraq (ok, fine, that's the projected total cost -- some bright folks at Columbia B-School published this report and came up with this number), or a $1 trillion on future combat systems, they're giving it away as cold hard cash to convicted felons (Mr. Stein had a felony fraud conviction on his record which S&K failed to notice). So when it gets to be tax time, I get very Charlton Heston... is it time for armed insurrection or what?

Btw, I should probably just give up. The reason this crap happens is pork, plain and simple. Here's an interesting set of facts about FCS:

"The FCS industry base spans 159 congressional districts over 35 states, with 363 companies on board, according to materials released by the program’s industry team.

The bulk of the work is done in California, where companies account for approximately 1,000 of the 7,000 high-tech jobs provided nationwide by the program. Those 7,000 jobs provide about $3 billion in salaries each year, said Muilenburg."

Quote source