The Great Debate - Free College For All

[sanantone]

Is that why Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, South Carolina, Arizona, Georgia, and Mississippi are in the top 10 when it comes to poverty? Oops! Never mind. Those are red states.

Mississippi is an agrarian state with high poverty thanks to a.) being a small agrarian state, b.) largely rural populations, and c.) lack of industry relative to other states.

The fact that it has high poverty has nothing to do with its politics, I assure you. I was born in Mississippi and have lived in Mississippi most of my life. People take advantage of welfare programs in Mississippi just as they do in California, where I've also lived. It's not a red/blue problem. It's a problem with human nature, and the reality is that one of the two major political parties in the United States incentivizes "lean-on-us" -type policies more than the other.

And, those incentives resulted in red states being poorer? You just said that it's not a red or blue problem, but you blamed one party for incentivizing welfare. For something to be an incentive, it has to actually incentivize people. So, where are all the Democratic state politicians incentivizing so many people in the South to be on welfare? Are they governors in most of these states? Do they control the house and senate in these states? Are most of their U.S. senators and representatives Democrats? How about the Republicans who run their governments haven't done enough to incentivize education and not having a bunch of babies you can't afford at such a young age? Most people in Mississippi are not farmers, and birth control works if you take it.

To you, it is a red/blue problem because you did not respond to LifeLongLearning; you responded to me. The bias is clear as day. When I shared states offering free medical school, the only response you could come up with was something negative because those states happen to be blue states, so I already know how biased you are.

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This is what I've found when searching for the most rural states. It looks like being rural and/or having a small population doesn't exactly correlate with being one of the poorest states.

The 10 states with the largest proportion of their land area classified as rural are: 1. Alaska, 2. Wyoming, 3. Montana, 4. North Dakota, 5. South Dakota, 6. Idaho, 7. New Mexico, 7. Nebraska, 9. Nevada, and 10. Utah. (Just for an example, 99.05% of Alaska’s land area is classified as rural by the Census Bureau.)

The states with the largest amount of land area classified as rural are: 1. Alaska, 2. Texas, 3. California, 4. Montana, 5. New Mexico, 6. Arizona, 7. Nevada, 8. Colorado, 9. Wyoming, and 10. Oregon.

I don't see West Virginia, Kentucky, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, or Arkansas on either of these lists.