The geography of federal dependency

Want to know why America is in trouble? Take a look at this interactive website provided by the New York Times. It maps which counties throughout the US rely disproportionately on federal largess as a percentage of personal income.

Of course, New Mexico has more than its share of government-dependent counties, but we knew that already. The really scary thing is to click by the year (this map is from 2009) in the top right corner. Go back to 1969 and Americans are less than half as dependent on the federal government (7.8%) as they are today (17.6%).