The collapse of socialist Europe as the educated flee.

This would have appeared even more dramatic if you had a chart for their GDP from just 1985 to 1990.

Edit: Agree, RIP Ms. Thatcher.

 

Since I think charts based on % gdp are misleading I searched for the straight up data to compare.

http://www.theguardian.com/news/dat...x-receipts-1963


Tax receipts... in billions of pounds in 2nd column and % gdp in third.

Once again it seems tax reductions are followed my increase in tax receipts.






964-65 12.3 36.2

1965-66 11.5 31.6

1966-67 12.6 32.5

1967-68 13.9 33.8

1968-69 15.9 35.7

1969-70 17.8 37.4

1970-71 19.5 36.7

1971-72 20.7 35

1972-73 22 32.6

1973-74 24.5 32.6

1974-75 31.7 35.3

1975-76 40 35.7

1976-77 46.1 35.2

1977-78 51.6 33.9

1978-79 57.1 32.8

1979-80 70.6 33.7

1980-81 83.9 35.1

1981-82 98.9 37.6

1982-83 107.2 37.3

1983-84 115 36.7

1984-85 126.4 37.6

1985-86 134.5 36.4

1986-87 143.2 36.1

1987-88 156.8 35.6

1988-89 173.1 35.3

1989-90 187.4 34.9

1990-91 199.7 34.6

1991-92 211.2 34.8

1992-93 208.4 33.2

1993-94 215.1 32.4

1994-95 235.2 33.4

1995-96 252.8 34

1996-97 265.7 33.5

1997-98 293.6 34.8

1998-99 313 35.2

1999-00 336.6 35.6

2000-01 358 36.2

2001-02 365.6 35.4

2002-03 372.6 34.1

2003-04 398.3 34.4

2004-05 426.5 35.1

2005-06 457.1 36

2006-07 487.8 36.2

2007-08 514.3 36.1

2008-09 500 35.3

2009-10 485.7 34.5

2010-11 522.4 35.3

2011-12 542.9 35.5

2012-13 550.6 35.6

2013-14 573.5 35.9

2014-15 597.1 35.8

2015-16 624.3 35.9

2016-17 657.2 36

2017-18 689.1 36



http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2010/apr/25/tax-receipts-1963

 

West Virginia used to vote Democrat in every Presidential election, but those days seem completely over. As Democrats in Washington continue to push policies that negatively impact the lives of virtually every West Virginian, the state has turned from Dark Blue to Bright Red.

from Washington Post:

Ordinary West Virginians used to look to Washington with something close to reverence. It was a partner in good times, a lifeline in bad ones, a powerful ally against the big corporations that came for its coal and timber. By some measures, West Virginia relies more on federal money than any other state.

But increasingly, it also has become an extreme example of the hostility that shows up in every national poll when people are asked how they feel about the federal government. Many here now speak of Washington as an enemy that threatens their economy and their way of life, that traps them into dependency.

“Washington’s 100 percent against us,” said M.E. Walker, a retired road builder who lives in Pence Springs in Summers County. “They don’t like our jobs. They don’t like our attitudes.” […]

From Franklin D. Roosevelt’s era until the 2000 election, it was among the most reliably Democratic states, one of only six that Jimmy Carter carried in 1980, and 10 that Michael S. Dukakis won in 1988.

But in the past decade or so, “West Virginia has realigned politically with the Deep South, at least in presidential elections,” historian John Alexander Williams said in a June lecture in Charleston marking the state’s 150th anniversary. “Between the 2004 and 2008 presidential elections, a time when voters were trending strongly Democratic in other parts of the nation, 366 of official Appalachia’s 410 counties increased their Republican share of presidential votes.”

In 2012, that trendline cut more deeply. Obama lost the seven West Virginia counties he had carried in 2008. It marked the first time that a major party’s presidential candidate suffered a 55-county shutout...