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Comment by wonderwonder | Hacker News Reader

Its easier to be in better financial shape if you are taking in more federal funding than you are contributing via federal taxes. 8 of the top 10 states that take more funds than they contribute are red. Exceptions are Hawaii and New Mexico.

Good read on the matter:

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/05/which-s...

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This spending constitutes things like social security checks and the upkeep of military bases and other facilities. It is not relevant to state budgets. And even if all the money went to a state general fund, the worst performers would not be significantly different.

In 2014 the federal government provided 40.9% of Mississippi's state budget. How is that not relevant to the state budget? As a percentage of state budget being provided by the federal government, 13 of the top 15 recipients are red states.

https://ballotpedia.org/Federal_aid_to_state_budgets

Very simple answer: blue states have bigger budgets so the % of aid they receive from the government seems smaller.

The Federalist has done an analysis of federal aid per resident:

>Against a national average of $1,935 in intergovernmental spending per American, red states receive just $1,879. Blue states get considerably more, at $2,124 per resident. Purple states see the least of their money returned to them per capita, at just $1,770. Measured in this way, the blue states are getting quite a bit more than the red or purple.

https://thefederalist.com/2017/11/17/red-states-tax-takers-b...

It's hard to have much ability to impart good faith when you intentionally exclude the amount of money paid in by blue states. The money the federal government is paying to red states is (...mostly) coming from somewhere.

The article states that no state receives more than its residents and corporations pays in federal taxes. People pay money to the federal government and the government pays back some fraction of the money per state. So any notion that blue states are subsidizing red states is ridiculous. What's happening is that the wealthy blue states pay a lot under our progressive tax system and receive a lot in return on a per capita basis.

Was it intentional that you left out the parts of the article that show blue states pay more in, and receive less per resident relative to what they paid in? Because you completely misrepresented what is claimed by only highlighting the outlay per resident

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