Chart of the Day: Voting Your Pocketbook

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We’ve seen this before, but why not see it again? Jeff Frankel shows graphically today the disconnect between how much net money the various states get from the federal government vs. how those states’ residents feel about government spending. Long story short, the ones who say they hate government the most are also the ones who are sucking the hardest at the federal teat.

Now, there are enough problems with calculating state shares of federal spending that you have to take this with a grain of salt. Still, it’s a solid point. If you want to kvetch about federal spending, that’s fine. But if you’re going to do it, how about first giving back some of your federal largesse to the states that provided it to you in the first place?

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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