CAPITALISM CAN'T WIN IN THE FREE MARKET.

"Blue State Scrooges," eh? OK, how do you figure, James W. Lucas of American Thinker? He admits blue states subsidize red states by generating income, and federal tax revenue on that income, that goes to subsidize the low-income folks in Hog Waller, Arkansas. But because those blue states enjoy state and local tax deductions on their federal tax -- or did until they lost it to the GOP tax bill today -- that means "low tax states [were] underwriting profligate high tax Democrat state spending," and rootless cosmopolitans are "Scrooges" for not wanting to give up that deduction which was hurting Hog Waller's economy (unlike the incoming private plane and second-home mortgage deductions).

No, it doesn't make sense -- the blue states were already carrying the freight for the red, so Louisiana was in no way paying for Minnesota's decision to pay more in taxes to pave their roads and operate public schools -- but it sets Lucas' topsy-turvy victim-blaming tone. He then asserts that red states are entitled to some of that blue-state money because businesses in LA and New York get their money from red state customers:

...corporate taxes are ascribed to the state where a company has its headquarters. Thus, Disney’s corporate taxes are all attributed to California, and Citigroup’s to New York. However, the revenue upon which their profits and taxes are based normally comes from across the entire nation. Disney does not sell tickets to Star Wars only in California, and Citigroup branches and operations are not limited to New York. For them and all other companies with nation-wide sales, revenues, and the profits and taxes which are based on them, come from throughout the country. The profits and taxes may be ascribed to states like New York where the companies have their headquarters, but the money comes from West Virginia and Mississippi as well... 

What this analysis can show us is that if blue states are subsidizing red states with federal expenditures, red states are supporting those blue states with the revenues which are the source of those higher federal tax payments. Indeed, if I were a radical leftist rather than a firm supporter of free enterprise, I might point out that it appears that blue states are holding red states in a quasi-colonial relationship.

Ho ho, okay Hoss, then let's look at it from a "free enterprise" perspective: Red state people buy Disney movies instead of Festus' iPhone Camera Skateboard Stunts, and use Citigroup's financial services instead of borrowing money from Clem down at the general store, not because they have no choice, but because they do have a choice and judge the big-city product to be preferable to the homegrown. That's not colonialism, comrade -- that's capitalism!

And as much trouble as I have with corporations of all types, at least Disney offers a consistent stream of product to customers and strives to keep them happy -- not like the jes'-plain-folks, salt-of-the-earth, red state companies like Piggly Wiggly and Walmart which have a tendency to crush smaller local businesses and then, when the profits have all been wrung out, abandon them to economic misery. Which, judging by this tax bill, is the Republican Party's model for all 50 states, and is being instituted by them not in the interest of what these guys jokingly call free enterprise, but toward the political goal of making Oregon as miserable as Mississippi so their citizens will be equally inclined give up on life and take what pleasure they can from racism and war, which are among the few things a GOP government can reliably offer them.

Guys like Lucas act perplexed that millennials are leaning toward socialism, but never admit even to themselves that it's because they've made capitalism a shit product. And if articles like this are the marketing campaign, I don't see the numbers getting better.