In an ironic twist at a time when Congressional Republicans are insisting on federal spending cuts, those states receiving the most federal dollars relative to their tax revenues are more likely to vote Republican in presidential elections, according to research conducted by Dartmouth College government professor Dean Lacy. This finding underlines the disconnect between Republicans’ rhetoric in Washington and the local demands of their constituents, he said. Other analysts and political scientists interviewed by The Dartmouth said they concurred with Lacy’s findings.
Lacy collected his data for a conference in 2002 and has been updating his research since.
“What members of Congress have to deliver is separate from their party platform,” Lacy said. “Congress gets re-elected by protecting the benefits their constituents rely on.”
Lacy found that Southern states tend to be the biggest beneficiaries of federal spending, largely because of their aging populations and their relative poverty, which renders them dependent on federal entitlement programs, food stamps and education aid.
Local demographics have left some politicians with no choice but to position themselves against their party’s ideological agenda on some issues, Lacy said. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., for example, has defied his party by opposing the privatization of Social Security, in no small part due to his home state’s aging population.
Republicans have recently enjoyed immense support in Southern states that receive a substantial portion of federal spending, according to Morton Kondracke, a Dartmouth trustee and the executive editor of the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call. Voter turnout among the poorest populations is typically very low, whereas the more affluent white population yields a higher voter turnout. Since the wealthier white demographic votes Republican, these states reliably support Republican presidential candidates.
In talking with people about government social programs, Kondracke said he has noticed that they feel entitled to certain programs while criticizing other people’s rights to the same benefits.
“With Social Security and Medicare, people are complaining about dependence on the government, but then they say, ‘I paid for this,’” Kondracke said. “In a lot of cases, people are benefiting and complaining at the same time.”
The tendency of Congress to legislate through comprehensive packages, rather than singling out issues in individual bills, may contribute to the flow of federal money into Southern states, Lacy said. The practice promotes coalition-building among Congressional politicians who would never otherwise forge ties, he said.
The Farm Bill is a prominent example of such vote-trading, as southern politicians bent on securing farm subsidies and northeastern state politicians seeking food stamps have solidified a convenient alliance, according to Paul Beck, a political science professor at Ohio State U.
However, the pressure in Washington to reduce the federal deficit poses a direct threat to these sorts of entrenched coalitions that have long provided elected officials with the incentive to support federal spending benefits for other members’ constituents, Beck said.
The New Deal’s establishment of social welfare programs, along with the expansion of Social Security and the creation of Medicare in the 1960s under Lyndon Johnson, provides an explanation for Lacy’s result, according to history professor Annelise Orleck.
“Once a social safety net is enacted, it’s very difficult to take away,” Orleck said. “Most parts of the New Deal are still in place because there is no political will to cut them.”
Johnson’s support for the elderly through Medicare was a shrewd calculation, for he knew that high election turnout among the elderly would make proposals to cut these programs nearly impossible for future politicians, according to Orleck.
Republican administrations understood just how politically unpalatable it would be to oppose entitlements, as evidenced by both Richard Nixon’s expansion of Social Security and George W. Bush’s expansion of Medicare, according to Dartmouth government professor Linda Fowler.
The effort by federal officials to navigate between their party’s priorities and their constituents’ demands can be seen in the contrasts between national and local media coverage, according to Fowler.
“Part of the phenomenon with the news media is they are pitching to the politically engaged part of the public that has polarized views,” Fowler said.
By contrast, local media is less focused on an elected official’s positioning relative to the rest of Congress and more likely to offer favorable coverage, she said.
Kondracke said the national political media tends to focus on the apparent inconsistency between Republicans’ budget cut rhetoric and their home states’ gains from spending.
“The national media, whenever it gets a chance to whack conservatives for hypocrisy, will do so,” Kondracke said.