Does Eastern and Western Washington need to split into two states (Republic: camps, racist)

[victorianpunk]

Just give it a few years. With all the latino growth in Eastern Washington and Spokane growing too, it will be less and less conservative in the coming years and will fall in line with Western Washington. If you really are dead set on being a conservative, you can always move to South Carolina, Alabama, Arkansas or some other bible-thumping, red to the core state.

One of the reasons I moved to Seattle is because it's so liberal, so yes, I do practice what I preach.

[509]

Originally Posted by victorianpunk

Just give it a few years. With all the latino growth in Eastern Washington and Spokane growing too, it will be less and less conservative in the coming years and will fall in line with Western Washington. If you really are dead set on being a conservative, you can always move to South Carolina, Alabama, Arkansas or some other bible-thumping, red to the core state.

Latino's are very liberal on government spending.

However, they are VERY reactionary on social issues. Good luck with same sex marriage, religious freedom, and abortion.

It will be a very different America in a couple of decades.

[Inkpoe]

Originally Posted by 509

Latino's are very liberal on government spending.

However, they are VERY reactionary on social issues. Good luck with same sex marriage, religious freedom, and abortion.

It will be a very different America in a couple of decades.

Yes, the Latinos was one of the groups blamed for the success of repeal of SSM in California. Just because a particular group or person votes D doesn't mean they're Liberal.

Plus, it's not going to be a few years before the other side starts voting Blue. Just not going to happen anytime soon.

[Count David]

Originally Posted by 509

Latino's are very liberal on government spending.

However, they are VERY reactionary on social issues. Good luck with same sex marriage, religious freedom, and abortion.

Good thing I don't fit into the little boxes election analysts like to place me in.

[victorianpunk]

Originally Posted by 509

Latino's are very liberal on government spending.

However, they are VERY reactionary on social issues. Good luck with same sex marriage, religious freedom, and abortion.

It will be a very different America in a couple of decades.

Majority of Latinos Support State Recognition of Gay Marriage - ABC News

A new survey conducted by Lake Research Partners found that strong majorities of Latino registered voters supported access to legal abortion, affirmed that they would offer support to a close friend or family member who had an abortion, and opposed politicians interfering in personal, private decisions about abortion.

New Polling on Latino/a Attitudes Toward Abortion | National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health

[jaja111]

I love these debates on state splitting. They're extremely entertaining to watch arguments unfold, all the while never addressing the facts regarding revenue. Large metro areas are business machines and they flood the state they are in, with cash. Most here seem to have alluded to feeling cheated if they live outside of King county, thinking they are "funding" the big city. Heck, I used to feel the same way about NYC when I lived in NY. After some researching it can better be said that the city funds the state, not the other way around. After the stock market crash, the loss of revenue from taxation in the financial sector was one of the biggest contributors to an enormous budget gap in NY state, and everywhere suffered for it. If the city fails to provide the revenue, services in the rest of the state suffer.

Go ahead, split into two states. I'd love it since I moved to the half of WA that contains Seattle. My taxes would decrease and the wealth of West Washington would accumulate at a much greater pace. As for the future East Washington, it should look to Mississippi for a picture of what's to come. It will never make budgets work. Schools, law enforcement, infrastructure, etc. will all deteriorate rapidly with the loss of that revenue. While not likely to be the poorest "state" in the union, it would be in the bottom 25%.

Discussions of splitting based on the political ideologies of two distinct geographic regions are utterly irrelevant when they fail to acknowledge the aspects of money. States are not just lines on a map, they are businesses.

[oregonwoodsmoke]

I don't know about splitting Washington, but if you guys would like to take Portland off our hands, the rest of the state would be happy to redraw the boundary a bit further south for a few miles. You can even have the airport thrown in to sweeten the deal.

Think about the offer. There are lots of good restaurants in Portland and that good research hospital. Quite a good deal for Washington. Free.

[jaja111]

Amazing! Its like watching people have the desire to cut off both hands because one has a broken finger. Does no one else realize the self defeating nature of this idiotic concept? You'd all let go of the cash for the sake of political similarity?

[PS90]

Originally Posted by jaja111

I love these debates on state splitting. They're extremely entertaining to watch arguments unfold, all the while never addressing the facts regarding revenue. Large metro areas are business machines and they flood the state they are in, with cash. Most here seem to have alluded to feeling cheated if they live outside of King county, thinking they are "funding" the big city. Heck, I used to feel the same way about NYC when I lived in NY. After some researching it can better be said that the city funds the state, not the other way around. After the stock market crash, the loss of revenue from taxation in the financial sector was one of the biggest contributors to an enormous budget gap in NY state, and everywhere suffered for it. If the city fails to provide the revenue, services in the rest of the state suffer.

Go ahead, split into two states. I'd love it since I moved to the half of WA that contains Seattle. My taxes would decrease and the wealth of West Washington would accumulate at a much greater pace. As for the future East Washington, it should look to Mississippi for a picture of what's to come. It will never make budgets work. Schools, law enforcement, infrastructure, etc. will all deteriorate rapidly with the loss of that revenue. While not likely to be the poorest "state" in the union, it would be in the bottom 25%.

Discussions of splitting based on the political ideologies of two distinct geographic regions are utterly irrelevant when they fail to acknowledge the aspects of money. States are not just lines on a map, they are businesses.

I actually agree with you that it would be stupid to divide Washington state, but I think your reasoning is flawed.

Based on this WSDOT source -

http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/NR/rdonlyres...15Sept2010.pdf

Granted, this is only one small factor, but at the very least, when it comes to transportation tax revenue, it challenges your ideas in that I see no obvious trend towards Eastern WA's dependence on Western WA. The bar graph on page 10, for example, says quite the opposite (Kittitas is the only non-Western WA county that contributes less toward transportation than they get back).

Even if we are assuming that Eastern WA generates a fraction of the revenue that Seattle generates, how do you explain a the economic stability of a state such as Wyoming?

Wyoming has no city larger than 60,000 people (compared to Spokane's 300,000+ people), has no major significant export or source of revenue other than tourism, mining and agriculture, and had an unemployment rate of 5.4% for September, 2012, compared to Washington's unemployment rate of 8.5%. Please note that I'm not contending that Eastern WA should emulate Wyoming, but it proves that a state can subsist quite well without a major city present to hold everyone else's hands. So, I'm not sure how Eastern WA wouldn't be able to survive without Seattle...

[jaja111]

Originally Posted by PS90

I actually agree with you that it would be stupid to divide Washington state, but I think your reasoning is flawed.

Based on this WSDOT source -

http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/NR/rdonlyres...15Sept2010.pdf

Granted, this is only one small factor, but at the very least, when it comes to transportation tax revenue, it challenges your ideas in that I see no obvious trend towards Eastern WA's dependence on Western WA. The bar graph on page 10, for example, says quite the opposite (Kittitas is the only non-Western WA county that contributes less toward transportation than they get back).

Even if we are assuming that Eastern WA generates a fraction of the revenue that Seattle generates, how do you explain a the economic stability of a state such as Wyoming?

Wyoming has no city larger than 60,000 people (compared to Spokane's 300,000+ people), has no major significant export or source of revenue other than tourism, mining and agriculture, and had an unemployment rate of 5.4% for September, 2012, compared to Washington's unemployment rate of 8.5%. Please note that I'm not contending that Eastern WA should emulate Wyoming, but it proves that a state can subsist quite well without a major city present to hold everyone else's hands. So, I'm not sure how Eastern WA wouldn't be able to survive without Seattle...

Well.... I was wrong. I looked and looked, on both points of Eastern Counties' highway expenditures and Wyoming's economic vitality. I cannot refute the points made and I guess, wish to withdraw my knee jerk concepts of how Eastern Washington would suffer from the revenue loss of Western Washington. The highway expenses vs. revenue seem to actually indicate the western half is a glutinous pig, consuming more cash than revenue raised for the roads. The infrastructure must be more expensive, including maintenance which must partially be due to the climate and topography being harsher to roads.

Overly simply put, Wyoming seems to have benefited from its isolation from financial market tribulations and has maintained its vitality by simply doing things right and living within its means. Yet this is a less difficult task when it has the smallest population of any state, equaling minimal expenses. I think natural gas, oil, coal, and minerals must play some significant part in the state's budget too. The state is also the most heavily federally funded one in the union. Would An "Eastern Washington" resemble Wyoming? I cannot definitively say but suspect it is possible.

However the origins of my comments were not disingenuous. NY suffered terribly after 2008 and it was consistently blamed not only on general economic disarray, but also the revenue losses from the city that for years had poured into and strongly influenced the state budget.

I guess I should try harder to avoid making comparisons between east coast states and west coast ones. I'm trying now, as exemplified by my departure from NY to WA. My thinking apparently cannot be applied broad-brush to a different state with a large metropolis. I still feel there is still some grain of truth regarding Seattle filling the coffers of the state budget, but realize now at least from the highway data, that they spend more than they give.

My apologies. I will research better before I write here.