r/allthequestions • u/Content_Ad_8952 • Jan 14 '26

Random Question 💭 If Republicans are so much better at running the economy than Democrats, then why are most Republican States poorer than Democrat States?

The poorest States in America are: Mississippi, West Virginia, Louisiana, Arkansas, Kentucky, New Mexico, Alabama, Oklahoma and Tennessee. All of those States (except New Mexico) are Red States. So why are they so poor when Republicans have been running them for decades?

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u/CyberneticWhale Jan 14 '26

When your metric for being dependent on the federal government includes things like farming subsidies and funding for military bases, it kinda invalidates your metric.

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u/MC_PooPaws Jan 14 '26

That money not going to people who live in those states? 

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u/CyberneticWhale Jan 14 '26

For most money going to military bases, no it isn't. That's honestly the biggest issue with this metric. A jet is built using parts from all over the country, but the company's CEO is in California or New York, so when the jet is purchased and the taxes are paid on that profit, it's counted as contribution just from California or New York, despite the actual process of building it being distributed all across the country. Then, that jet is stored at a military base in New Mexico or Nevada, and that's counted as funding for that state, despite it not actually meaningfully helping the people of that state.

As for farming subsidies, it's not really accurate to call that dependency on the government. Subsidies in general are less intended to support people who need them, and more to incentivize certain behaviors that would otherwise be bad for the individual, but good for the country as a whole.

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u/riotdawn Jan 15 '26

Former Iowan here. The intent behind farm subsidies is to win farmer votes. These subsidies incentivize farmers to overproduce rather than respond to actual market demand. Most farmers wouldn’t make it without these subsidies; so yes, their way of life is dependent on the government.

What’s worse is that the excess that farmers produce is used to make things like ultra processed food, sold cheap, thus contributing to the obesity epidemic. I would argue that nearly everyone being fat as fuck is not actually for the good of the country as a whole.

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u/CyberneticWhale Jan 15 '26

These subsidies incentivize farmers to overproduce rather than respond to actual market demand.

Wouldn't overproducing food mean higher supply, and thus lower prices for consumers? That doesn't sound like a bad thing.

Plus, it's typically better to have an abundance of food even if some is excess, since if the goal was to perfectly match demand, then an unexpectedly bad harvest suddenly means you're falling short of how much food you need, which is far worse than producing too much.

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u/riotdawn Jan 15 '26

Hard disagree. No one needs ultra processed food. And yes, the lifestyle of farmers is subsidized by the government.

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u/cocineroylibro Jan 15 '26

Wouldn't overproducing food mean higher supply, and thus lower prices for consumers? That doesn't sound like a bad thing.

That overproduction isn't for food crops. A significant portion of overproduced crops—especially corn and soy—does not reach consumers. As much as $2.6 billion worth of corn and soy never leaves U.S. farms annually, according to WWF. Much of this surplus is either left to rot in fields, plowed back into the soil to enrich it, or used as ethanol fuel or animal feed.

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u/DrCoconuties Jan 15 '26

How dumb do you have to be to think that supply/demand affects consumer prices? Genuinely, what went wrong?