In February of 2013 I wrote an essay entitled The Electoral College. It was originally published on this website and was part of the lost material when the site disappeared for a few days. It is currently a chapter in my as yet unpublished book entitled The Bubba Factor: Essays In Early 21st Century American Politics. I guess you could also call it unfinished because I now intend to add this article to that chapter.
Among other things, the original essay explored the relationship between what states paid in federal taxes, what they received in federal dollars and how they voted in the 2012 election. The data – the best I could find for years – was from a 2007 Tax Foundation study that examined 2005 taxes. The other day Dr. Paul Krugman mentioned a new study from the Rockefeller Institute examining 2018 federal tax transfers in the New York Times. That gave me the opportunity to see how much things changed over a 13 year time period. Continue reading 13 Years Later