Kentucky's gravy train is now in danger, thanks to Mitch McConnell's heartless greed [View all]

[applegrove]

Kentucky’s gravy train is now in danger, thanks to Mitch McConnell’s heartless greed

Apr 25, 2020 1:47pm by kos, Daily Kos Staff

https://m.dailykos.com/stories/1940305

Kentucky *took* $148 billion more from the federal government than it gave.

"SNIP......

Looks like it’s time to reexamine Kentucky’s privileged status. 

Blue states have been happy to carry the burden of funding red states for … kinda forever. California, New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, in particular, have pumped untold hundreds of billions over the last several decades into mostly rural red states. 

That dynamic carries forth in states themselves, with large urban centers paying for rural regions, like the upstate-downstate divisions in Illinois and New York, or Philly-central Pennsylvania. 

And that would be fine! Liberals are okay with helping out those that are less well off. Liberals have no problem with the federal government subsidizing telephone and mail service to rural areas—services that would not be justified by capitalistic math. We’re okay subsidizing rural health care. We’re okay subsidizing rural education, or opioid treatments, or transportation networks (e.g. roads). 

The problem here isn’t our willingness as liberals to help our disproportionately rural Conservative brothers and sisters. The problem is twofold: 1) the bullshit pretense that these same people are “anti-government” and that urban liberals are somehow feeding off the government trough, and 2) the refusal of these same assholes  to help when blue states get hit with catastrophe. Instead, Mitch McConnells and his asshole buddies suddenly discover the evils of the budget deficit—a deficit that wouldn’t be so large if Kentucky wasn’t bleeding the country dry.

......SNIP"