This is an attitude that has been displayed in my vicinity in a very pompous and ignorant manner, while I was at work of all places, gotta start asking about that "culture" thing more often. You don't have to have sympathy for anyone, not even empathy but this ridiculous assertion of "lets cut the money off and watch these stupid hillbillies suffer" or "we carry them too much as it is" is just wrong.
On the basis of farm subsidies I can't offer much knowledge, other than a vague feeling that those that receive the most benefit are the larger operations and since the farm bills conception(Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933) American farmers have given up a great amount of autonomy. Large operators get the benefit, small operators make it until they can't or end up punching out and we get a data center or solar farm. It's their property, I cannot bark at them about a damn thing.
Getting back to my original point, using www.ruralfunding.org/insights you can search by county the amount of federal spending per capita. Brazos county is at $8,147, Burleson county is at $7,437 and Grimes County is at $6,546. Meanwhile, Bexar county is at $8,623, Travis county is at $10,864, Dallas county is at $10,617, Tarrant County is at $10,912 and Harris county strangely is at $5,335. Not sure what is going on with Harris, the population is no different than Dallas/Tarrant counties combined so I suspect some shenanigans are occurring there. Admittedly that is just federal per capita spending, and the information is from 2024 and just like everything else I'm sure has gone up. I am having trouble trying to get a urban/rural number for Texas per capita spending, so the best I can do is $4,617 but there has to be better numbers out there. It would appear that the larger urban areas get a lot of the money, because you represent a larger expenditure, forget efficiency or the challenges associated with infrastructure expansion, you're trying to fit a $100 dollar foot into a $60 dollar shoe and telling the employee of the shoe store he's wrong for wearing a $30 dollar shoe.
Roads are another topic that are lumped in with this thing, road tax is charged on every gallon of fuel sold in Texas, both state and federal. Higher amounts of traffic wear a roadway down faster, it needs repair/replacement or expansion at some point and we aren't laying down asphalt cathedrals in Houston or Austin, they're made of concrete. Granted it is a good material to build roadways out of, but its expensive on the front end, the middle and the back end. Letting something stagnate, such as a CR or FM, probably has ill effects as well. In my experience(driving all over this state) I have always encountered poorer roadway maintenance and general conditions in the bigger cities, things wear out too quick and its too expensive to replace so you band-aid it. The majority of tax expenditures for roadways are used in urban areas, since ya know, more people live there. Glad to know that I pay all that fuel tax so *****s like you can ***** about how living in a rural community is a drain on resources.
Let's add water to the mix, since this is a data center themed thread. There are 4 major projects that are operational or are planning to be, to move ground water from those ****ty rural areas to larger urban areas. Vista Ridge Regional Water Supply Project, moves water from Burleson County to Bexar County....weird. Recharge Water Supply Project, moves water from Lee County to Georgetown/Williamson County...weird. Upwell Water Project, tentative but moves water from Lee/Burleson Counties to a vaguely worded "Central Texas Urban Region"......weird. Finally, Alliance Regional Water Authority Project moves water from Caldwell County to I-35 Corridor cities such as Kyle/San Marcos, probably Austin too, but can't admit that. These Projects are asking for anywhere between 35,000 acre feet to 100,000 acre feet of water annually, that is a tremendous drain on a resource that is necessary for life, agriculture and oil/gas production. Granted you can get smug and say something alone the lines of "current rule of capture law states we can do whatever we want", but that's a weird way to say you're wrong and someone else is making millions off of an agreement your local government made to prop up a ridiculous population density.
I chose Brazos/Burleson/Grimes counties because they are central to me, but a cursory glance says most rural counties are a respectable amount lower with Federal per capita spending than any county that holds a large urban area. It would appear that this notion of "we already carry them" is nothing more than someone pissing on somebody else because they're too close to them, happens when you're living that close to each other I guess. I have no problem with anyone who lives in a city, there are benefits to it, but its a strange thing to look out the window of your glass house and throw rocks. Both areas need each other for things, and shockingly, these things cost money. Having said that its not about money, it's about the same **** that has been going on for as long as I've been able to vote for the last 16 years, you want to be right.
