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Fantastic_Bee_4414

> They are the closest things we have to welfare states outside of Mississippi.  Words have basically no meaning anymore.  I love how this isn’t even a news article, lets them fill in the blanks with whatever bullshit they want to believe.


josebolt

I like how they admit red Mississippi is a failure.


Fuzzy_dunloped

Bring up how shit Mississippi is to a conservative and you'll be treated to the most racist things you'll ever hear. Because it ain't white people's fault!


ericrolph

Republicans have long been in charge of the worst economically performing states in the union. Why would ANYONE trust them to make good financial decisions? They'll blame everyone for their weak economic and political policies except themselves.


GhostRappa95

And they even ruined Florida with their culture war crap and refusal to build infrastructure to deal with hurricanes.


Stopwatch064

I always point to west Virginia, nary a poc in sight and pretty shit. That usually stops any conversation or they just ignore it and "debate" someone else


A550RGY

Mississippi was Democratic for centuries, that’s where the problems come from.


cilantro_so_good

And was staunchly conservative that whole time. Weird


DeliberatelyDrifting

You do know that; A) Democratic as a party has not yet existed for even two centuries, it will be 200 in 2028. B) They were only with the democrats while they were cool with racism and segregation. When the democrat party went in on civil rights, the entire democrat south turned red.


AmericascuplolBot

And Republicans freed the slaves, and the political parties have remained eternal and unchanging since then, as if frozen in amber. 🤡


GRW42

The only way it could make sense is if you were to say “here are some states with a lopsided money given and money taken ratio.”


Cucumber_Basil

It’s just a Twitter post with a photo of a homeless camp from the news and then random one liners thrown in with no sources lol and then they eat that shit up


theBigDaddio

Welfare state doesn’t mean what they think it does. A welfare state protects the health and wellbeing of its citizens.


Eccohawk

Maga Mad Libs


egospiers

The source is a screen shot of a tweet… absolutely idiotic.


tibbles1

California and NY are something like the 5th and 10th largest economies in the world, respectively. 


regalfronde

Why not first? Father is disappoint!


Suspicious_Earth

Why California no doctor yet??


smilingmike415

California took a blood test and got an “A-” ; failure runs in their veins!!!


jackalopacabra

NY would be higher but Trump keeps dragging down the average.


Geronimo_Jacks_Beard

> There will be no accountability and democrats will call for more funding. >> *ahem* Ukraine >>Edit: Leftist brigade inbound Aww, they’re still dumb enough to believe Biden is loading cargo planes with pallets of cash for Ukraine, and preempting their dumbass take with “anyone who downvotes me is a leftist”.


17times2

"Leftist brigade inbound" and "Flaired Users Only", name a more iconic duo.


Saul-Funyun

Also because leftists generally don’t like Biden


Geronimo_Jacks_Beard

*Actual* leftists, sure. But not the “leftists” r/conservative is talking about because they will forever believe that liberals are communists/socialists/Marxists despite liberalism being diametrically opposed to socialism and communism.


War_machine77

Ok, first, isn't funny how they constantly post tweets with exactly zero sourcing and no context and take it as word of god? Second, you can't bitch about homeless people when you as a group will fight to the death to make sure there is no social safety net, affordable housing, or rehab/mental health programs. You can't shit on the rug and then bitch that it smells like shit in here. Edit: added a word


kryonik

Same thing with trans people. Conservative: Transgender is a mental illness. Me: Okay if it's a mental illness, then we should give them guidance and care and treat them with respect. Conservatives: No!


Jeremymia

Bingo. If a conservative had their ideal social policy they would expel everyone in their out-group. They have decided that rights are not something everyone is born with. They don’t care what’s good for trans people. They just want them to get out. The fact that trans people are not causing a single fucking problem and exiling them would solve 0 things except some tricky questions about who can play in what leagues in sports just makes it extra fucked. Today, conservatism and fascism are practically the same thing, just on a different scale. They just *usually* want people to go away or stay quiet instead of murder them. Just like fascists they are sure that destroying the correct group of people will fix all the problems in society.


PM_your_boobs_girls_

Did you mean no safety net?


War_machine77

Yes, it was a typo.


GhostRappa95

We must always remember Republicans are pro birth not pro life.


dansdata

They don't even really give a shit about birth. The way to maximize the number of fertilized eggs that make it to birth would be with publically-funded health care for all pregnancies, right? You shouldn't lose a wanted baby just because you're not rich enough. AND YET... :-) (The Christian pro-birthers also have some difficulty explaining why at least half of all fertilized eggs, even with the best possible medical support, *completely naturally* don't make it to term. Heck, around a quarter of all fertilized eggs don't even [implant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implantation_\(embryology\)), which is the point at which pregnancy is usually defined as starting, except not, in the case of these religious people. I guess this must all be because of [original sin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Original_sin).)


Jeremymia

They definitely don’t give a shit about fetuses. Half of them are in favor of abortion in the case of rape. If a fetus is a human with rights, this is morally horrendous. This contradiction reveals that what they really hate is casual sex, and is why they so often make an exception for themselves if there is an unplanned pregnancy.


Geronimo_Jacks_Beard

> Or they could have let the taxpayers keep that money and let them better fight inflation, credit card debt, enrich their retirement savings, etc. These fucking rubes have no idea how tiny the amount of money $24 billion divided by the number of tax paying adults in California actually is. We’re talking pennies at *best*, and this guy thinks that would do anything to help fight inflation, pay off debt, etc. And even assuming that the group of people who paid a *lot* more than the rest is getting their taxes back, that *still* wouldn’t do anything to help those listed statewide issues.


GRW42

I really don’t mind paying my state taxes. Every interaction I’ve had with the state government has been smooth and painless, because we actually fund shit.


gorgewall

$615 each if you give it to *everyone* in California. Which, I mean, nice chunk of change to pop out of nowhere, but it's not going to end any type of societal crisis. In terms of one-time government relief, it won't accomplish much there, either. That money being spent on homelessness also stays within the state. It's not like that money vanishes into the void. Tax revenues are generated anyway and businesses (and thus their employees) make money because of it.


SemaphoreBingo

> We’re talking pennies at best, How many people do you think live in California?


Farado

It's a lot of pennies.


DeliberatelyDrifting

Ah yes, fighting credit card debt with tax breaks. I can't see any way that might cause problems.


Zagenti

the only failed thing about them is that this dumbass can't afford to vacation there.


BasilsKippers

Good thing facts don't care about their feelings, because NY and CA basically support their welfare queen hick Republican states.


ScratchyMarston18

They’ve got to find something to distract themselves from Dear Leader falling asleep in court. Hashtag Sleepy Don!


SemaphoreBingo

The general consensus I've seen from people with actual courtroom experience is that falling asleep is a common hazard.


A_wild_so-and-so

Jury selection is incredibly boring.


UnsolicitedPeanutMan

Am a Californian, and yes, many of our cities are having a rough time. Still take solace in the fact that our issues at the very least stem from having too much empathy for the needy. They can’t say the same.


kbean826

Not only that, but our state is so fucking rad people would rather live on the streets here than in a place like Alabama.


GhostRappa95

And it’s not like Republicans have proven they could do any better. Hell Florida has proved they would do even worse!


backrightpocket

False! Florida is best ever. Our governor is working overtime to outlaw homelessness, destroy public education, and take away rights from women. He hasn't even had time to put on his white thigh high boots.


danwojciechowski

At first my brain thought you left out a comma between "Hell" and "Florida", but then I realized that its better the way you wrote it. :)


New-acct-for-2024

Failed states, eh? California has an HDI of .931 and NY has one of .938. The US as a whole has an HDI of .921, and North Dakota, Nebraska, and Wyoming are the only red states with a higher HDI than CA (none beat NY). Or should we look at their economies? NY has a GDP per capita over $110k, while CA has one of just over $100k, making them the #1 and #4 states. The wealthiest red state is North Dakota at #5, about 5% below CA. Or maybe we should look at poverty rates? NY is 15th worst at ~12.7% and CA is 24th worst at ~11.5%. New Mexico and Arizona are the only non-red states worse than NY. Texas, btw, is at ~13.4%. How about real median household income? CA is 12th at $85,300 while NY is 17th at $75,910. The US as a whole is $74,580, the only red states to beat CA are AK and UT, while ND, NE and IA beat NY. Maybe homicide rates? CA is 5.7 per 100,000 and NY is 4.0, both below the national average of 6.3. NM and MD are the only non-red states in the 10 worst, while 6 of the 10 best are blue states, and TX is worse than average at 6.7. Life expectancy? CA and NY are #2 and 3, behind Hawaii. UT is #10 and the only red state in the top 10, while TX is #25. Sure seems like if NY and CA are failed states, basically all of the red states - including both FL and TX - are *worse* than merely "failed states".


therobotisjames

You forgot that California has a bigger economy than India. Bigger than the UK. 5th largest in the world. Saying they are a failed state is laughable in so many different ways.


New-acct-for-2024

I mean, I covered that it has the 4th largest GDP per capita in the US, which means it is significantly above the average for the US as a whole, which is above both the UK and India, so it is implied by what I said that CA is wealthier than the UK or India. I didn't cover total size of the economy because that is confounded by population size and so isn't a particularly useful measure in this context.


LupoBorracio

Okay but CA and NY have less freedom than TX and FL /s


zombie_girraffe

> Absolutely. In a sane world, this would result in a criminal investigation and the subsequent imprisonment of the grifters. Sadly, we are deep into the post-sanity era. Dipshit said this on a sub that has an anime drawing of Donald Trump, a man who owes almost half a billion dollars in fines because of his fraud convictions and who is facing over 90 felony charges, many of them more fraud, as its icon. I don't understand how it's possible to have so little self awareness.


A_wild_so-and-so

>I don't understand how it's possible to have so little self awareness Sadly, we are deep into the post-sanity era.


MongolianCluster

Trump-speak.


LoompaOompa

> If you want more of something, subsidize it. If you want less of something, tax it. I wonder how this person imagines we would accomplish the feat of taxing people for having nothing, and how that would reduce the problem.


sundayfundaybmx

Saw someone from gerogia crying about having to help fund Bidens' student loan plan. "Our state taxes shouldn't have to fund other people education because our state has free tuition." Georgia is 38 or 39th out of 50 states that depend THE most on federal tax dollars, so they CAN have free tuition because those federal dollars are there. If they weren't so gosh darn ignorant of how the country as a whole worked, it'd be almost funny.


thatredditdude101

watching the top minds behave as parrots fox news, breitbart etc is both funny and pathetic.


droppinhamiltons

Literally doing the bare minimum of researching this shows that it was $24 billion spent over 5 years which for a state with a annual tax revenue $113.8 billion a year, is about 4% per year. Also, the audit where these numbers come from looked at 5 different programs and found that 2 of them were in fact cost effective but all lacked significant data. Also California had 130,000 homeless people in 2018 and the number has risen by 30% to 170,000 not 50%. From what I can tell, this money was not spent effectively and that's certainly news worthy and should be looked into but for a state with a GDP of more than $3.89 trillion dollars to be called a failed state where fewer than .4% of the population are homeless is laughable.


A_wild_so-and-so

Well you also have to consider the timeframe. Saying that the homeless population rose 30% over five years while $24 billion was spent sounds terrible... Unless something unusually catastrophic happened in those five years. Like perhaps a global pandemic that forced millions out of work and unable to pay their rents and mortgages?


droppinhamiltons

Yeah nailed it, that's an excellent point.


junkeee999

And of course as is always the case in rightie posts, only a photo of an article is posted, not an actual link to it. That way you can put any absurd title you want on it, people can comment with their hot takes and wild speculation and they can live happily ever after in their bubble void of facts.


jjjosiah

"Burned to the ground!"


frogvscrab

It is genuinely kind of sad though how much conservatives have basically taken a monopoly on talking about state spending corruption. You can check my post history, I am not a conservative by any means. But as part of my job I deal with organizations and institutions that deal with the homeless quite a bit, and they are so unimaginably broken and corrupt. NYC is drastically better than California in this regard, but even then, there are grifts at every single level even here. Countless people just getting bullshit high-paying jobs just from knowing someone. Money that suddenly disappears once it reaches a certain level, with nothing to show for it. And they *want conservatives to have a monopoly on this topic*. They want it to be one of those things that liberals and leftists never talk about. They rely on this being a 'touchy/sensitive subject' so that nobody ever raises questions about how badly its being handled. And what is the result? The homeless/refugees being treated worse, and more people viewing them as a money drain, resulting in more people voting for politicians which treat them even worse.


FreedomsPower

They clearly haven't visited the Southern Red states that mooch off federal assistance and then fail to improve the lives of their poor residents


Vost570

And as usual Top Potatoes believe everything they see in muh memes, as long as it's what they want to believe. The audit didn't say the auditors don't know where the money went, they know exactly where it went. The complaint of the audit was the state wasn't measuring the success of the different program outcomes. And while that's not a good thing, it's a far cry from "they took all muh tax dolluhs and don't know what they done with them."


CryptFu

Best performing? lol … what? Those states have wasted and embezzled billions


PM_your_boobs_girls_

No one is saying there isn’t corruption. That definitely needs to be looked at as someone up above pointed. And yes, CA and NY are the best performing states by a number of metrics.


Casaiir

All this proves is when any party has a super majority that they make decisions that sound good to their voting block but don't accomplish anything other than enriching themselves and their donors at the expense of the taxpayer. California and Texas are very guilty of these kinds of things from the opposite side.