Pre-Blibbet

From my collection, before we used email for phone messages or had the blibbet logo.  1981, I think.  The paper and glue are starting to get a little brittle.

Two Maps

Here are two maps, county by county, put together by the New York Times.  the top one is what percentage of all income come from various government services: medicare, food stamps, VA, unemployment, etc. 











The second is the 2008 presidential election.  In both cases, if you go to the original source, you can drill down by county or go to the results from different years.




The thing that strikes me is how similar they are.  The deepest blue areas in the electoral map mostly get the least benefits, and many of the places that get the most are very "red" politically.  There are some conspicuous exceptions: Apache county in Arizona, where most people live on an indian reservation, DC, where most people are poor and black, along the river in Mississisppi, where most people are poor and black, and along the texas/new mexico border, where most people are poor and mexican.  But by and large, the people that benefit the most consistently vote for the party that wants to take those benefits away.

The places that benefit the most are all deeply poor, with very few people that are even middle class.  the difference, it appears to me, is the color of your skin.  poor whites vote republican, poor everybody else votes for democrats.