R_P wrote: 

 R_P wrote: 

The Pain; When Will It End?

 sirdroseph wrote: 
And population by county (actually a better correlation to your first map)

Not really the point you were going for, but yeah, where there are lots of people, more things happen. Also, people tend to lean more democratic.

But here's another related tidbit:

Half of the population of the country lives in the shaded counties (blue used for differentiation, not political alliance):



So shouldn't those areas receive half of the federal dollars spent?  and yet here is the federal spending by county:



quite different isn't it?  And note that this is per capita, not absolute, so it is distorted even more when you account for the population densities noted above. Why is california so highly taxed?  Mabe to make up for the dearth of federal funding (not that there is any lack of dollars flowing from CA to DC).

So it seems the republican cry of "welfare queens, living on the government dole" is really misplaced. 

Here's medicare spending in case you were wondering who is sucking up the health care dollars:

 Red_Dragon wrote: