This is in response the letter “GOP principles are to live by” published on June 4. In this letter the author tried to refute a previous letter about “How can the poor vote Republican” by saying that the 10 poorest states are poor not because they are red states but because “they don’t have a lot of big industries” and that the liberal state of California is rife with moral problems and big financial problems.
Not only does this not even come close t0 refuting the previous claim, it is just plain false. California has been on the mend with a budget surplus. In fact this year it has the largest budget surplus it has had in over a decade under the governance of the liberal governor Jerry Brown. In contrast, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger left office with the deficit higher ever. I will allow that he was governor during the height of the recession, but the fact still remains.
One should also note that the states that had the least impact from the recession were those that are classified as “blue states.” This may have something to do with a strong safety net in place or it could be the presence of big industry. Regardless of the reason, the data does not lie.
Additionally, the author portrays Republican as “god-fearing, hard-working, honest and sincere Americans,” and do not want government hand-outs. This implies that the Democrats do not have any of these traits, something which has no merit. But to address this truth within this statement one must only point again to the reddest states in the country. Statistics have shown that the states that do have the largest usage of “government hand-outs” are nearly all red states. Additionally it is the blue states that pay the most in taxes to support these red states. Year after year the Bible belt state are using more financial assistance from the federal government that they pay in. The opposite happen in traditionally blue states.
As for the moral problems within the Bible belt states, this holds no water either. The 15 states with the highest prison population per-capita are all red states and 12 of those are considered in the Bible belt. Seems to me these people who seem to put so much faith in their god that the author’s “hat goes off to them” has the least amount of ethical and moral conviction.
So the idea that red states are better off than blue states is just false at its core and the author is either willfully misinformed or disingenuous in his statements. Hopefully the former is the case as I would be unhappy to see a Republican willingly spread misinformation.
Robert Ray
President, Humanists of North Puget Sound, Granite Falls
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
