Extra Credit for Government
A very interesting graphic based on government spending results from Fiscal Year 2004 (we are currently prepping for Fiscal Year 2007 so these results are a bit dated but it takes a while for the numbers to be totaled and become official). See the link below.
If you would like to earn some extra credit, you may provide your thoughts and comments based on the content of the chart or any other info you can provide relevant to the topic that the chart describes. Your comments must be unique however. You may give your comments up until midnight of the day the Senate votes on the confirmation of Mr. Alito.
Dividing Federal Dollars
Thanks,
Mr. Thompson
posted by erdecker @ 1:37 PM
16 comments
16 Comments:
well okay this is obviously slightly misleading. no kidding Alaska or Montana is going to have high per capita spending. they still need a lot of things that cost a lot of money that every single other state gets, unfortunately all this money gets divided into less people than say with California. With Virginia and DC, however, I am a little surprised at their high per caps. I suppose with all the big gov't things that go on in these two areas it's not too surprising.
Anyway, I thought I would also add how important per caps can be in the real world. my boss is always telling me how the employees have to be super friendly and perfect so we get our per caps up to be good. yay. except not. In this case having high per caps is great cause that means you get more money, assuming you have more people. hm. I'd like to see this somehow listed by states with the largest populations vs the largest per caps. would be quite interesting.
I've rambled enough, I am finished.
Many people assume there is a higher per capita in the lightly populated states becasue there is less people, this is a very reasonable arguement. Just to add another variable I think some of the higher per capita states like Hawaii, Alaska, etc. aren't as modern so doing things there is more expensive per person. If I want to give 2 million people in California $1 dollar I wouldn't have to do much travelling in some areas. If I wanted to give $1 to 2 million people in Alaska, I might as well join the Iderod (or however you spell the dog sledding race). It's just easier to aid people in states with a more condensed population, i.e. states with large metro areas. We have the twin cities, California has multiple metro areas, and so forth. It's all about logistics!
Eric, I believe that "dog sledding race" is called the Iditarod. They have their own webpage too.
http://www.iditarod.com/
It starts March 4th which is only 56 days, 19 hours and 25 vminutes away.
Your welcome, Mr. Thompson
Laugh now, but in 20 years I'll be the Lance Armstrong of the Iteroder or whatever!
Here are a few links contributing to why Alaska has such a high per capita
2004 ANNUAL REPORT. It's a pdf file. Right click, save link as... if you can't view it.
State of Alaska, Department of Health & Social Services Portal
A resolution... pdf file again.
As you can see in these few links, many programs need funding, and federal grants and such are helping Alaska out. It's allowing the citizens of this state to get jobs, helping with health care, and other things (a link that wasn't posted helped fun the radio broadcasting system implanted within Alaska).
But why the federal government didn't help a lot of other states that are more so in need still confuses me.
Well, I understand what people are saying about the different reasons for why the per capitas are why they are. The one that makes the most sense of me is population. Technology or modern ways of living seem to have an impact on the per capita but i understand where the population thing comes in. I was looking up information on the topic and I came across a document that compares Canada to the per capita for population. I thought it was interesting compared to the United States. They show the per capita of personal income from 2002-2004 showing the numbers increasing. It was quite interesting. Here's the site. http://www.stats.gov.sk.ca/docs/factsheet05.pdf
Cassandra
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To me, the concentration of industries/businesses influence the federal spending per capita. States with the higher per capita (VA, MA, CN, NM, ND) have many elements that need money to promote their economy.
For example, Viriginia and other prominent east coast states get huge amounts of governmental financial support to power their enormous fishing, tobacco, and peanut farming businesses. All this considerably increases the federal spending per capita in those states.
Also, I apologize to anybody I might have offended in my previous blog.
Hey guys!
Did anyone else consider the fact that all of the states, even Alaska and Montana get to have two senators? well that means no matter what your population in a state you get an equal say in where the money goes! So if I was an Alaskan senator like powerful vice president of the Senate Ted Stevens D-Alaska, I would try very hard to get lots of money for my District. Another thing to look at is house and Senate leadership, all of these states seem to be doing pretty well, and look rather green. How strong a Senator is deffinitly has an effect on how much money is spent in a state, (one reason why re-electing canidates is so popular a choice.)
RANT: why is Minnesota a light green state???
well that's all I have to say, take a better look at your senators http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/senators/a_three_sections_with_teasers/leadership.htm
-Becky Baker
Hey, Becky. Minnesota is a WHITE state, not light green. ;-)
I looked upon the graphic, and at first, all I took in were the many shades of green, but then my eyes found Douglas County, Colorado, the lowest of the lowest fiscal counties...
It's small: about 251,292 projected for 2005 and is about 842 square miles in size.
It don't get alot of money (about $1206 per capita).
Its website hasn't been updated since 2004.
Here's the FANTASTIC site. I should really say ENTHRALLING. Yes, that's the word.
http://www.douglas.co.us/
I love government. and extra credit. both. fin.
There's a different way of analyzing this chart. It would be interesting to juxtapose (haha...) the map of federal spending per capita and the map of territorial voting for the 2004 election. After a little observation, a trend can be found. If you can remember, most of the mainland United States voted republican and the highly populated coasts voted democrat. If you translate the per-capita spending map into a spending-per-state map, the coasts (mainly the east coast) would come out with an outrageous majority; the mainland green states have very small populations, while the coasts have very large populations with just as many green states. This illustrates the difference in political philosophies: conservative states take care of themselves while liberal states rely on the help of the federal government.
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Well, I really am not sure what this graph really means, but what I am pretty sure of is that it's not by population. It would make sense to be by population, but if it were, then the white would be concentrated on the coasts, much like the distribution of liberals and conservatives. However, NY, PA, MA, RI, and CT are all green, and all have high populations. Also, there are a lot of green states in the south, which doesn't make a whole lot of sense, because those states have decently high populations, and a lot of white states in the midwest, which is less populated. All I can say is that I'm pretty sure it's not by population.
Becky's point makes the most sense, but since it's hard to figure out who has a lot of power in Congress, it's going to stay a theory...
We all know that Social Security is a big-ticket item on the budget. Wouldn't it be interesting to lay the number of Social Security recipients over this map and see what emerged? Notice that despite their very large populations, many of the southern states, which is where many retirees go (snow birds), spend more per capita than we do.
By the by, that comment was posted by Elizabeth Sullivan
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