Eight pages of smug bureaucrats worried about their Beltway home value. Don't worry guys, there are Whole Foods and Trader Joes in flyover country. And with the Ivy League using geographic affirmative action, your little tikes will have a better shot at Yale via the rust belt!

This entire discussion is rather silly and Exhibit A of just how uninformed "flyover country" is about the federal government.

Every department has locations all over the U.S. and millions of federal workers live outside of the DC metropolitan area. It's the reason that shutting down the government was such a stupid and reckless move, and why even talking about randomly closing or moving agencies is completely asinine. The federal government of the United States is holding up the economies of hundreds of communities, both large and small, all over the country and the globe.

If people in flyover country want some respect, it would help a great deal if they stopped acting so effing stupid. I'd say you'd be ready to go to war with any foreign entity that wanted to dismantle our government the way it's been proposed here and by soon-to-be appointed leaders, but even that most basic patriotism is in doubt these days.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With 7 of the 12 richest counties in the US surrounding DC, Trump should work on decentralizing this vulgar concentration of bureaucrat wealth by moving federal agencies to the middle of the country. Example: Dept. of Education to Betsy Devos's hometown of Grand Rapids, Mich. That alone would lock up Michigan as a red state in 2020.

The agencies can slash bloat and wages in the process (lower cost of living in flyover country), it would be a boom for non-coastal economies, and policies would likely better reflect real America versus insulated coastal elite outlook.

And what would this cost? I mean, the government already has buildings and infrastructure in place. What will it cost to replicate?

The government just rents from someone elsewhere.

--a fed in the flyover country (well, sort of)

Most government offices are in GSA facilities.

Just lease the old facilities to Ivanka and turn them into Trump Hotels.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And you wonder why HRC lost Michigan. All those dumb fuck UofM grads. And MSU may not be Ivy, but it graduates some smart people. Chicago and Northwestern are 150 miles away.

God you people are assholes. And oblivious to that fact.

And, it does happen that quite a few of those people who went to the almighty Ivy actually came from the middle.

I'm one of them. But it's still a really stupid idea to move the fed agencies out. Transactions costs on it are huge, you would lose your best employees because we are the ones who would have no trouble finding jobs that allow us to stay where our families are rooted and our spouses are employed. It's nothing but spiteful stupidity.

Agreed. The smartest and best would just find something else to do rather than live on fly over country (many of us fled to D.C. From those shitholes after college). There would not be enough educated or experienced people outside the area to effectively run the government.

Keep in mind. They almost bankrupted the auto industry and made it the rust belt because of their inability to adapt and change to the market needs. Sounds like another kind worse kind of swamp to me.

+1 - we all worked hard and got out of those places, why send people back to cultural and educational black holes? Bring down the whole country to the lowest common denominator.

such a sad, truly deplorable way of thinking

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Anonymous wrote:

There is a reason they are called flyover states - nobody wants to live there.

And, attitudes like this are what cost Hillary the election......

Yet here you are making the desperate case for bringing jobs, people and money there because it isn't there and nobody wants to generate any of it there.

Face up to it, it's not "attitude" - most people with ambition leave their small town because there isn't enough of a like-minded community of interest to sustain their dreams or draw upon to build their enterprise.

Yes, there's a lot of "attitude" being expressed in this thread. Not every place in "fly over" country is a small town.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With 7 of the 12 richest counties in the US surrounding DC, Trump should work on decentralizing this vulgar concentration of bureaucrat wealth by moving federal agencies to the middle of the country. Example: Dept. of Education to Betsy Devos's hometown of Grand Rapids, Mich. That alone would lock up Michigan as a red state in 2020.

The agencies can slash bloat and wages in the process (lower cost of living in flyover country), it would be a boom for non-coastal economies, and policies would likely better reflect real America versus insulated coastal elite outlook.

or maybe Michigan would become solidly blue, with all these highly educated, liberal leaning fed workers moving to the state.

I assume you are being sarcastic, but the sad truth is that a lot of people in depressed areas in flyover country cannot work for federal agencies not because the agencies are in DC, but because they lack the education. the USPTO has actually opened satellite offices in other areas, and thousands of trademark or patent attorneys telework from anywhere in the US already, but in order to work there you need to be a patent or trademark attorney, not an unemployed coal miner....

I'm sure there are more than unemployed coal miners there. What an obnoxious statement.

You sound like a drunker sailor OP. Maybe go to college instead of whining.

He'll never do it with the Trump hotel in D.C. Building his wealth is how most important issue.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't really see NIH picking up and moving somewhere.

Likely not. I don't know much about it, but I'm pretty sure they have lots of studies that include "flyover country" participation.

yes - there are cancer centers all over the country supported by NCI/NIH.

Moving NIH labs and animal facilities would be cost prohibitive.
Maybe administrative offices could be moved.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't really see NIH picking up and moving somewhere.

Likely not. I don't know much about it, but I'm pretty sure they have lots of studies that include "flyover country" participation.

yes - there are cancer centers all over the country supported by NCI/NIH.

Anonymous wrote:I don't really see NIH picking up and moving somewhere.

Likely not. I don't know much about it, but I'm pretty sure they have lots of studies that include "flyover country" participation.

I don't really see NIH picking up and moving somewhere.

You know, if the government moved their offices out to other states, they wouldn't be moving them to a cornfield. They'd be moving them near a city with shopping and transportation infrastructure and in many cases near major research institutions- so Columbus, Ann Arbor, Madison, Boulder, etc. those areas are already blue. I'd be fine moving to any of those areas and while there are highly educated folks there, NASA is unlikely to find someone else with the same experience and education.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With 7 of the 12 richest counties in the US surrounding DC, Trump should work on decentralizing this vulgar concentration of bureaucrat wealth by moving federal agencies to the middle of the country. Example: Dept. of Education to Betsy Devos's hometown of Grand Rapids, Mich. That alone would lock up Michigan as a red state in 2020.

The agencies can slash bloat and wages in the process (lower cost of living in flyover country), it would be a boom for non-coastal economies, and policies would likely better reflect real America versus insulated coastal elite outlook.

And what would this cost? I mean, the government already has buildings and infrastructure in place. What will it cost to replicate?

The government just rents from someone elsewhere.

--a fed in the flyover country (well, sort of)

Most government offices are in GSA facilities.

Just lease the old facilities to Ivanka and turn them into Trump Hotels.

Anonymous wrote:

Serious question: why don't the flyover states try getting tech start ups? It would be far easier and better to lure high tech college kids with cheap living and creating a diverse workforce than it would to lure government contractors, who are leaving.

There are plenty of tech startups in flyover states. There is plenty of talent in flyover states, too. Do you seriously think that flyover states are all cornfields and coal mines?

Not nearly as many as there are in Silicon Valley, NYC, DMV and a few other locations in "coastal elite" territories. Places like Idaho haven't exactly been booming tech bastions.