81% of people receiving public housing benefits vote Democratic – and that’s just the tip

Democrats have well known this for decades.

Perhaps I spend too much time lurking around left-leaning blogs, but there are many myths taken as fact without any additional analysis.

One of the most prominent? The notion that red states take the most aid from the government.

Mitt Romney sparked outrage during the 2012 election for his comments about the “47 percent” of Americans who are dependent on government. Romney was actually quoting the percentage of Americans who pay no federal income tax, not the percentage of people who receive government aid, which is a slightly larger 49 percent.

In an article published before Romney’s gaffe, liberal economist Paul Krugman blogged that “Aaron Carroll of Indiana University tells us that in 2010, residents of the 10 states Gallup ranks as ‘most conservative’ received 21.2 percent of their income in government transfers, while the number for the most liberal states was only 17.1 percent.”