Welfare States

(Thanks to The Decembrist).

In the US the term "welfare state" is an insult. It's usually used to refer to the Federal system of social benefits like Social Security or Food Stamps. But let's look at another type of welfare state: Idaho.

From The Guardian:

The governor of Idaho, an affable rancher named Jim Risch, stretched back in his chair and outlined his alternative history of the last few years in America. "Hurricane Katrina - they heaped that on George Bush!" said Mr Risch, in his shirt-sleeves in the blasting dry heat of an afternoon in Boise, the state capital.

"Here in Idaho, we couldn't understand how people could sit around on the kerbs waiting for the federal government to come and do something. We had a dam break in 1976, but we didn't whine about it. We got out our backhoes and we rebuilt the roads and replanted the fields and got on with our lives. That's the culture here. Not waiting for the federal government to bring you drinking water. In Idaho there would have been entrepreneurs selling the drinking water."

Wow. Let's check the figures on you independent minded Idahoans... for every $1.00 you send the Federal government you get $1.28 back. In my state of Illinois for every $1.00 we send we get $0.73 back. Sounds like you folks need to pay back a pretty huge loan before you start blowing smoke up your own backsides.

So how did they do when they got flooded in 1976? What's an entrepreneurial 'culture' look like? Let's look at the official Department of the Interior history:

Failure of Teton Dam left Reclamation with a situation never encountered in the agency's history. Legal experts concluded the Federal government was not legally liable for damages caused by the dam's failure [my emphasis]. The Ford Administration took a different stand. The President decided the government had a moral responsibility to pay restitution to the flood victims. Within a week after the disaster, President Ford requested a $200 million appropriation for initial payments for damages, without assigning responsibility for Teton Dam's failure...

Reclamation set up claims offices in Rexburg, Idaho Falls, and Blackfoot. Disaster victims filed over 4,800 claims by January 4, 1977, totalling $194 million. The Federal government paid 3,813 of those claims, $93.5 million, by that date. Originally scheduled to end in July 1978, the Claims Program continued into the 1980s.

Still sucking that teat into the 1980's, huh? Kinda sounds like Idaho started up their backhoes after getting some sizable checks from Washington.

Idaho. King of potatoes and Queen of welfare. I'd like that $194 million back now.

p.s. Note to my pals in Minnesota and Indiana. MN gets back $0.69 per dollar and IN gets back $0.97. You deserve some money back from the potato heads too.