Pretty sure California and New York are tired of paying billions of dollars to the Federal government that gets re-distributed to all of the failing Federal welfare states.
If they're so tired, I'm sure they'd be happy to give back the billions of dollars they receive any time now.
I think the picture is more complex than donor states and receiver states. As the article below argues, the Rockefeller study that the data comes from has flawed methodology.
New York for example benefits tremendously from its large financial industry that pays a lot in taxes. But arguably the industry is so concentrated in New York today because of federal laws that force the federal reserve to conduct its financial activities only in New York, among other hard coded advantages that the state has lobbied for. In addition, retirees who receive billions in benefits each year from the federal government commonly leave the state in favor of places like Florida, further distorting the picture. Unlike more fiscally prudent states, New York also has billions in tax exempt bonds outstanding that deprive the federal government of revenue but are not counted by the Rockefeller study.
I know what you mean but I think think this specific article makes a good case. For example the financial industry concentration in New York and retiree mass emigration really do distort things.
If you want to states to not get federal gov't funds, you're in agreement with the people who think the scope DC should be reduced and states to do more. So now that you're in agreement, get to enacting those changes.
On your other point, I'll just leave this here:
>“How come the white working class uses government programs while railing against handouts?” Because you are the government. They’ll take what they can, but they’ll be damned if they beg for it. “Why are all these hicks voting for authoritarianism?” Exercise some basic cognitive empathy, please. They’re not voting for authoritarianism. They’re voting for fuck you.
It's because of inequality. California and New York have a higher GINI coefficient than most countries. If high net worth people from those states moved to other states, the transfer payments you are talking about wouldn't happen.
The nation is dependent on the money that California and NY put in to the federal tax system. You're welcome.
"A 2017 study by the Rockefeller Institute of Government found that traditional blue states like Connecticut ($15,643), Massachusetts ($13,582), New Jersey ($13,137), New York ($12,820), and California ($10,510), contributed significantly more in federal taxes, per citizen, than traditional red states like Mississippi ($5,740), West Virginia ($6,349), Kentucky ($6,626), and South Carolina ($6,665).
Not only do some states contribute more to the federal budget than others, but some also receive less from the federal government in return. On average, each of our 50 states receives about $1.14 from the federal government for every tax dollar they send to Washington.
This is why our federal government runs a deficit every year. The traditional red states mentioned above, however, receive more — much more. For example, Mississippi received $2.13 for every tax dollar it sends to Washington by way of federal taxes, West Virginia $2.07, Kentucky $1.90, and South Carolina $1.71.
For some large traditional blue states, California receives only 96 cents, Massachusetts 83 cents, Connecticut 82 cents, New York 81 cents, and New Jersey 74 cents for every tax dollar they sent to Washington. The discrepancy is significant."
I'm also in favor of returning governance to the stats and we're probably in disagreement about a lot of things. Seems like an easy political win for Washington would be to return power to the states
> I mean red states are more rural which alone would account for more subsidies.
Yeah, duh, that's their point.
We are strong as a country because our wealthy, dense state economies support our poorer, rural state economies; and that's why it's laughable when red-state citizens and politians rant about seceding from the "evil communist blue states."
If states like CA and NY are getting such a raw deal why don't they want to change it?
This tired old trope needs to be taken out back and shot. The net in or out flow from any given state is not enough to substantially impact anything.
Pretty much every state gets back what it puts in plus or minus 10-20%. Considering that each state is putting in a number that is only a small fraction of its GDP the overall difference is negligible. I think most people in the states that are getting paid would consider the economic hit to be a cheap price to pay for removing federal oversight from the things those dollars pay for.
Furthermore, even the poor states are just fine by European standards.[1][2]
Maybe we should let each state run the way they see fit... you know kind of like how the Constitution assumed things should be done until the Commerce Clause was used by the Federal Government to hammer every state into submission.
Alabama has a higher GDP per capita than Germany, Belgium, Israel, France, Japan, the U.K. and...I could go on.
Alabama is doing well. We live in such an enormously wealthy country that it only looks bad by comparison. But not by comparison to basically anywhere else on Earth.
I can't find the number of Alabama, but considering that it's generally in one of the last places in the US, I can't imagine it being higher than the US average, so I wouldn't be shocked to see it somewhere around Croatia's level.
You realized you just dismissed GDP per capita, a quantitative metric, as too “flawed”, then instead relied on HDI which entirely a made up metric based on subjective measures?
You might not like the magic numbers in the formula or the things they choose to weigh, but GDP is much, much too coarse to evaluate anything about the greater well-being of a population, especially in developed countries.
In the very least you'd have to adjust for purchasing power parity and look at the median rather than the mean, to say anything useful about quality of life for normal people.
Yes, I agree. GDP is a very rough measure. I'd prefer PPP, but I couldn't find it for individual states after a cursory search. (I still think most readers will be surprised by Alabama's GDP, relative to wealthy European nations, so it's not totally useless.)
Agreed, PPP would be better, but my cursory search didn't turn up a convenient list like the one I linked for GDP. (This is a bit like the old joke about a guy searching for his keys 20 feet from where he dropped them, because that's where the streetlight is.)
In response to my claim that Alabama only looks bad by comparison to other U.S. states because of how rich the U.S. is, but that it's in fact a very wealthy place by comparison to everywhere else -- in response to this you offered...a ranking of U.S. states?
