WY the most conservative, D.C. the most liberal - according to Gallup (Boulder: sale, lease)

[WyoNewk]

I'd guess that most conservatives share the libertarian SLANT to some degree. I don't consider myself a libertarian, but I favor a smaller central government, just not quite AS small as a true libertarian. Most conservatives I know feel the same way.

[monkeywrenching]

Originally Posted by Wm Jas

The conservative slant is evident everywhere but I have found that I have to seek out the libertarian slant - it's here though, but not in large numbers.

well, I am here in state now, so you can add another Libertarian to that slant.

[notoriouskelly]

While looking at those numbers- check the crime stats for WY & DC.

While we're at it- compare crime in lib cities vs con nationwide

[Happy in Wyoming]

The labels hardly matter. I support maximum freedom for the individual, a federal government with little power, and an isolationist foreign policy. I could be called a conservative, libertarian, classical liberal or Antifederalist.

I'm appending some wikipedia articles but read them with caution. One which had a long list of American rights has suffered severe revision and vitiation. Categorizing right wingers is like herding cats; we're scarcely part of monolithic groups. Read the works of these people.

Let me give some examples of my views. I opposed the Gun Control Act, the various civil rights acts, and campaign financing reform. I oppose the American alliance with Israel and the wars of subjugation in Iraq and Afghanistan. I am fiercely opposed to the Patriot Act and all similar legislation.

I was very comfortable with the Southern conservatve Democrats, the men who always opposed civil rights and gun control legislation. A once moderate Republican who shifted far right was former president Herbert Hoover who provided extraordinary evidence of Franklin Roosevelt's traitorous and procommunist activities. I highly recommend the book he wrote on the subject.

I support traditional American values and culture. That means no homosexual marriage and really no tolerance for them; let them stay in the dark. The drug culture, the cullture of the vaunted diversity, is disgusting. The only worthwhile women are virtuous women. There's much more.

Libertarian conservatism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Classical liberalism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Paleoconservatism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Freedom Betrayed: Herbert Hoover's Secret History of the Second World War and Its Aftermath: George H. Nash: 9780817912345: Amazon.com: Books

[BerkMTB]

Wyoming gets the most federal funds per resident.

Wyoming first in federal dollars per capita

[sunsprit]

Originally Posted by BerkMTB

Wyoming gets the most federal funds per resident.

Wyoming first in federal dollars per capita

It's always interesting to see how folk can take statistics and use them to draw misleading conclusions, like Wyoming residents are getting more than their "fair share" of federal funds.

For example, what's really left out of this analysis is that the Federal Gov't own/controls a huge portion of Wyoming's state area, which become non-taxpaying/revenue sources for the state's economy ... but:

the state must provide infrastructure to support those lands and their uses. The Fed gets to charge for the use of these lands (for example, mining permits and leases, grazing leases, etc) which yield no income for the state.

In Wyoming, the Feds own over 48% of the land area!

I leave it to you to conjecture how such land ownership of other states would affect their revenue stream.

For example, New York is 0.8% federal land, CT is 0.4% federal land ... this includes all the military bases, nat'l monuments, federal parks lands, etc.. I'll bet that if 48% of New York was federal land not yielding any revenue to the state, it'd be way further upside down financially than it is now.

And MA is only about 1% federally owned lands. The rest of it is in the hands of the state where the state/residents can put it to productive use for their purposes and tax revenues. I'd suggest that if you don't have a proportionate reduction in Federal "dollars per capita" compared to states like WY that are getting screwed by the fed on revenue and income opportunities, that you're stealing from the folk in those other states.

PS: it's not like the Fed is handing each of Wyoming's residents a check for the money to pis* away as we individually see fit to use it for our personal purposes. Those Fed funds are paid to the WY state treasury which uses them to provide for many federally required mandates ... such as infrastructure to support federal lands & buildings & operations, highways which bring access to the federal lands, etc.

PPS: as well, the Feds have unilaterally reneged upon several of their agreed upon programs where they originally dictated the terms to WY for payments. IIRC, there was recently over $134,000,000 witheld by the current administration for mineral severance taxes owed to Wyoming. Other issues are borderline theft, IMO ... like the recent Fed EPA decision back handedly turning over 1 million acres of Wyoming land (on an issue that has been through the courts and settled in favor of WY for over a century) to an indian reservation; this is now costing Wyoming taxpayers a substantial amount of money to revist this issue in the courts. There's no new evidence, no changes in the laws, nothing retroactive which changes the situation as previously decided, nothing except EPA manipulation of their own regs and interpretation by unelected bureaucrats to force Wyoming to have to defend itself again. Anticipate a multi-million dollar court battle for Wyoming, to be paid by Wyoming taxpayers ... funds that could well be spent on other meaningful priorities. Just for reference, even the affected tribes have joined with the State of Wyoming to ask that no changes in land governance be made in accordance with the EPA ruling until this entire affair has been resolved in the courts. I think it rational on their part to not undertake control and the responsibilities of the governance unless they know for sure that it will be upheld ... for they, too, will incurr substantial costs to do so without necessarily getting a tax stream to adequately support the changes if they lose in the courts.

[WyoNewk]

I sure wish I could rep you for that, Sunsprit. Good points and well said!

[eastmemphisguy]

Yeah, that giant chunk of federal land in the Northwest corner doesn't do anything for the state at all... Pretty much all the "conservative" states who complain constantly about the feds are the biggest welfare recipients.

[jody_wy]

And being the largest coal producer and one of the largest oil and gas means a lot of severance tax .... plus a lot of infrastructure...
and eastmemphisguy want exactly are those welfare payments and you do they go to in the state?

[sunsprit]

Originally Posted by eastmemphisguy

Yeah, that giant chunk of federal land in the Northwest corner doesn't do anything for the state at all... Pretty much all the "conservative" states who complain constantly about the feds are the biggest welfare recipients.

Indeed, that giant chunk of federal land in the NW corner doesn't pay a penny in WY taxation, yet costs WY a substantial amount of money to support access and services to it.

Yes, it provides jobs ... but the majority of them are seasonal workers. If you don't know it, there's something called a "closed for the season" sign which gets hung out on most of the park each year and the jobs go away. The park contractors who operate hotels, restaurants, and other facilities pay their lease payments to the Fed, not the state of WY.

That park is also a nature refuge area which harbors a lot of wildlife that is not healthy or beneficial to the regional area ranchers. You've probably never heard of Brucellosis, for example, but it is a highly contagious disease which transfers to vectors outside the park ... into the hands of the State of WY, trying to protect it's wildlife herd and the contagious spread to private cattle herds. The costs of containing that outside the park are borne by the citizens of WY ... either at the state level or personally out of their own operations for domestic livestock.

There's also predator animals which the Fed protects in the park who don't know that they're supposed to stay in the park. The wolf management problem in WY, aggravated by their phony "re-introduction" schemes, has cost Wyoming huge amounts of money to manage the impact on wildlife and domesticated livestock ... again, monies spent at a state and personal level. That's on top of the court/legal fees that all of WY has had to spend to defend the state control of this. It's more of a local issue, but the Fed has been caught more than a few times "re-introducing" these predators onto private lands ... a particularly notorious case involved the Fed helicoptering in wolves onto a rancher's calving pastures on his private land. It was only a matter of luck that he discovered the Fed agents and their helicopter on his property and what they were doing; they didn't call him up and tell him that the were going to place predators onto his property which would be feeding off of his livestock. Just for clarification: How'd you like to see the Fed putting federally protected predators on TN's livestock producer's land? do ya' think that they'd be welcome and appreciated? do ya' think that the ranchers might have a problem? do ya' think that the equine (hey, wolves like horse meat, too) business in TN might not be affected, too? Do you understand that wolves kill for sport? How'd you like to have wolves introduced into populated areas of TN? those wolves that the Feds are placing into WY area as native here as they are in Memphis ... which is to say, not at all.

When I go camping in the Fed parks/forests, the fees I pay to access the public lands go to the Fed, not the state of WY. Yet I travel on roads that are built and maintained by the state to access those lands. In the wintertime, the Fed hangs out a "closed" sign and you can see the immediate impact upon the economies of the adjacent towns which effectively become the end of the road, a dead end leading to nowhere. Yet the individuals who own those businesses affected must continue to pay their fixed costs of operation and their employees must find other work to maintain an income stream.

Just over 4% of TN is Federal land, about 1,100 acres. I'll put that into another perspective: that's not even 2 sections of land. Here in WY, the historical average size private ranch in much of the state was at least 6 sections, and that wasn't a figure derived due to robber land barons ... it was the minimum amount of land that could yield enough income productivity to minimally support a family operation that worked many hours without employees to survive. It took a lot more acreage than that to have any affluence; the chunk of ground I live on is part of an old 22 section ranch that never survived financially ... and it barely provided a living for the residents/operators because it was owned by land speculators in NYC who never saw it, but traded ownership of the sections of land around here for many years ... typically making their money on the land speculation rather than any profits from the operations. The history of this little ranch was that almost every operation here was made possible by off-the-ranch jobs so that the folk living here could survive.

TN's soils and water availability are far more productive, too, for crops.

Again, I'd ask how it would impact the economy of TN if the Fed took 48% of the land mass and turned it into their private revenue source instead of allowing it to be in the hands of the State for revenue generation from private citizens paying property taxes and generating other revenue to the state from their businesses and personal income?

Just got my notice advising of this year's rate increase for electricity by my COOP provider. The gov't rate per KWH is less than half my rate. The cost to deliver that power to the gov't facilities is the same or more than it is to deliver it to my property, and the cost per KWH to generate it is the same (those little electrons don't know if they're going to a private user or a gov't facility). But the utility company must cover it's cost of operations, so proportionally ... I'm paying to support the T&D to the Fed gov't owned/operated facilities in this region. That includes buildings and structures in cities as well as rural areas. Tell us, memphis ... how'd you like to be paying your own electric bill and half the bill of your neighbor, too, so that they can get the same services and electricity that you do?

What would the effect be on TN if another 44% of the property tax base was removed from the state revenue stream? do ya' think it might affect the state at all?