Do Southern Senators Really Want to Start a New War Between the States?

When my Southern pals used to say "The South is gonna rise again," I doubt this is what they had in mind: A cadre of Southern Senators, heavily financed by foreign automakers and special interests, declaring war on the American Dream of good wages and decent benefits. When did they decide that hard-working people trying to make a better life for themselves are the enemy?

These Senators may want to think twice. Southern states have been benefiting from Northern taxes for years. If they start another War Between the States, the Federal gravy train might suddenly stop at the Mason-Dixon line.

Studies by the nonpartisan Tax Foundation have consistently shown that these Senators' states receive far more from the Federal government than they pay back in taxes. That's an irony that could lead to some Blue State bitterness: They love to preach about fiscal responsibility and lower taxes, but they keep dipping their beak into the Federal trough.

I believe the applicable Southern phrase is "a handful of gimme and a mouthful of much obliged."

The numbers in the Foundation's most recent study (warning: pdf) speak for themselves: Mitch McConnell's Kentucky took in $1.45 from the Feds for every dollar it paid in taxes. That's a 45 cent free ride. Bob Corker's Tennessee received at 30-cent Federal giveaway. And Richard Shelby's Alabama extracted a whopping 71-cent subsidy from Northern taxpayers.

What about Michigan? They lost 31 cents for every dollar they paid. In other words, McConnell, Shelby, and Corker have been skimming a percentage off these autoworkers' taxes for years on behalf of their constituents. Now, when the same Michigan taxpayers need help, these Senators are telling them to get lost.

It may not be wise for these Senators to push Northern voters too far. Taxpayers in Michigan, New York, Illinois and the other "donor states" may decide thay can't afford to keep subsidizing their Southern counterparts in a time of crisis - especially if all they get in return is "Drop Dead" on a Christmas card.

These are tough times. We should be pulling together, not exacerbating our divisions. And nobody would win a new War Between the States: Not the Democrats, whose 50-state strategy is just beginning to pay off. Not the Republicans, who Dick Cheney rightly noted are at risk of becoming the "Herbert Hoover Party." And probably not these Southern Senators, either. They could go down in history as the guys who killed a mighty sweet deal.

RJ Eskow blogs when he can at:

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Comments

[hortonhearsawho2]

They started the civil war, a Black man is here to end it.

[hortonhearsawho2]

Bring in Sherman....

[ObjectiveRealist]

Eww, count me out.

It would be so much easier to just let the Southern States secede, and destroy themselves as they have been doing to the entire Union. Their culture is against the Kyoto protocols, and for everything else that has made the United States the laughingstock of the world the past 9 years. I say, it's time to cut those losers loose to learn to swim without our help, or more likely, just sink under their own dead weight.

[olgraydawg]

Well said, and I as a black man and viet-nam vet who started to notice the corporate influence there feel good to know there are those who recognize b ull shoot for what it is. The calendar gives us black history month while the contributions continue the entire year. Soon I hope the contributions of free men and slaves can be taught as a part of the entire curriculum. Home schooling doesn't work.

[grf67]

No problem - prohibit any earmarks for the republican senators this year. In 2010 there will be fewer reoublican senators.

[William1950]

Southern states and business got used to paying slave wages... they still have the lowest wages in the country... the lowest. They pay millions of dollare in concessions to get business to move there, promising low wage rates... tax concessions, and the people eat it up. Most Southerners don't understand that they are the lowest on the totem pole because graft and corruption keep them there..

[jsgaetano]

The answer is perfectly obvious. Republicans have been trying to "win" the Civil War ever since they lost.

Conservatives don't want what's best for America. After all, it's not even their country. All their destruction is breaking down an enemy they hate.

[TommyObama]

Dick Cheney's worried about the GOP becoming 'The Party of Herbert Hoover" in the American mind? He should worry about it becoming "The Party of Dick Cheney".

[TommyMcCarthy]

A Quote.....with ten guesses to figure out who said it:

"I don't think it's very smart for a bunch of Southern Republicans to decide that the future of the Republican party is to beat up working-class union members in states like Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio.
The UAW is in alot of trouble....they've shrunk by 2/3 in these last years.

An average automobile derives 10% of it's cost from wages.....while they seek to cut wages between 10 and 25 percent...­..........­.so that's 1 to 2% of actual costs.

To have a huge fight for that, I think is a bad mistake for Republicans"



Were you out of guesses before before Neo-Con philospher and free-marketeer extrordinaire
Bill Kristol came to mind??

tm
tm

[Figerre]

if the Big 3 are not funded - all those pension expenses will go into the national pension recovery [can't remember the actualy name] but tax payers are going to be paying through the nose for them that way. As hard as the southern senators have worked to get the most out of the Fed while passing that on to foreign automakers - i'm wondering who is going to be making our tanks, etc., should we ever be isolated from overseas in the middle of a war here on our own ground - kind of like Red Dawn on meth. Should be interesting.

What I find most shocking is how this has become a bright line between the southern senators and rest of the country - do they not really care about the nation as a whole? Or is it that they are all having buyers remorse over the bank bailout - and anyone else is going to have to go through the eye of a needle to get what is needed? Always - the shoe is on the other foot when it comes to blue collar workers - you'll notice that the upper management hasn't even tightened one belt.

[EZD]

I live in Florida, and what they do down here is give tax breaks to companies to come into the communities and when the breaks are over the companies leave. And it seems to go on and on...and the state has no state tax, where do they think the money is suppose to come from, tourists i guess all the people from up north can do is come here to spend their money so they don't care if you have a job or not. I grew up in Wisconsin and the difference is stark.

[hollybork]

These guys still believe in slavery. That is the bottom line. Why else would they want to break the unions and send 2 - 3 million working americans into the unemployment lines to beg for work at peanut wages? You cannot have enough poverty and desperation to satisfy these moronic, hopeless idiots. That they are OUR REPRESENTATIVES is the gravest of indictments of the functional superiority of the democratic process.

[mjeffn]

Would we require them to have green cards to work in the North or, would they be.......red cards.

[elr50]

The only good thing about my elderly parents move north from Florida is that I never have to go to that f'in state again. Damn I hate the south.

[babaann]

I think the repubs are doing EVERYTHING they can to destroy the USA before Bush leaves office.

[rbenjamin]

Eskow's post captures the political dynamic. One quibble- It's not so much a War Between the States that's brewing as a prolonged guerrilla action as the GOP retreats to hill country - precisely what ol' General Lee feared most. Demographics are working inexorably against the Republican machine, but a sharp incumbent Southern Senator who is willing to cut deals to bring pork to his electorate can lead a long and lucrative political life. The Senate is the ideal habitat for creative, flexible, obstructionism. The filibuster is still a potent weapon, even if the number of Republican senators goes below 60. Every bill is a transaction and Democratic defections are inevitable. Beyond iron discipline (unlikely), the best Democratic counter is to turn every Senate race into a national referendum and drown the remaining Red bastions with outside money. War by attrition, with Red states picked off one by one. The Republican Party must either adapt (abandon core principles and strategies) or die. Given it's inherent conservatism, I'd bet on death . Dean's 50 State Strategy was forward thinking and completely sound. We are in for some ugly politics as the Southern Strategy of Nixon shrivels and dies. The Founding Fathers could never have envisioned the evolution of their system into modern politics. They aren't rolling in their graves - they're doing spit takes!

[ProAmericanLobbyist]

Congressional Democratic Leadership is too weak to defeat a determined Republican Resistance to Change. Reid and Pelosi can not cut it! We teh people need new leadership in the Congress or nothing will get done like the last two years!