THOSE GOVERNMENT-HATING, SELF-RELIANT RED-STATERS

Some data accompanying an article in the business section of The New York Times:

Note what's measured here: government payments as share of personal income. As the article notes,

Close to $2 of every $10 that went into Americans' wallets last year were payments like jobless benefits, food stamps, Social Security and disability, according to an analysis by Moody’s Analytics.

So the national average is nearly 20%, and in many states the portion is well over 20%, as shown. And note that of the 12 states listed, 8 voted Republican in the 2008 presidential election and 10 voted Republican in 2004.

The article makes the obvious point (though it's a point that isn't made often enough, and never by the president): government money is money; if individuals get less money from the government, they'll do less consumer spending in the private sector, which is very, very bad for the economy.

And, clearly, that will be especially true in the red states listed, after our next wave of draconian budget cuts.

And when those cuts fail to revive the economy -- when, inevitably, the economy gets much worse -- you know what the red-staters will blame: Big Government.