Adapted from Robert Whitcomb's Dec. 8 "Digital Diary'' column in GoLocal 24.

''Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it, good and hard.''

-- H.L. Mencken

Steven Pearlstine, who writes on business and economics for The Washington Post and is a professor of public policy at George Mason University, had an entertaining observation the other day in a Washington Post essay headlined “Under Trump, red states are finally going to be able to turn themselves into poor, unhealthy states’’. Actually, many Red States are already poor and unhealthy. The much denounced liberal, higher-tax states are generally richer, in part because they have better public services.

“After all,’’ Mr. Pearlstine writes, “if Republicans cut taxes — in particular, taxes on investment income — then the biggest winners are going to be the residents of Democratic states where incomes, and thus income taxes, are significantly higher. Governors and legislatures in those states — home to roughly half of all Americans — will now have the financial headroom to raise state income and business taxes by as much as the federal government cuts them — and use the additional revenue to replace all the federal services and benefits that Republicans have vowed to cut.’’

That means the Northeast! And this region will continue as the richest in America. Good public services make states richer.