Donor vs Recipient States

Californians pay more in federal taxes than the state receives in federal spending. This is also true of Oregon, but in California it's true to a much higher degree. So the state is essentially subsidizing the rest of the country and doesn't have enough left over for itself.

Many states receive more federal funds than they contribute in taxes, so according to this mode of argument the population of those states do even worse than contribute nothing.

Why not? The high tax states are also paying more in Federal taxes than they receive. The low tax states are already subsidized by the federal government.

State-level funding sounds good on paper but would work poorly in practice because the federal government benefits from its sovereignty in ways that state governments don't. The vast majority of Americans' tax revenue goes to the federal government, not to state or local governments, even in wealthy, high-tax states like California. And state governments, unlike the federal government, don't have access to effectively unlimited borrowing capacity at <2% interest. Also, Californ

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.

That's not how the US actually works. The federal government does quite a bit of wealth redistribution from the states that are net producers to states that cannot generate enough revenue on their own: https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/economy/2019/03

Are you talking about the southern states or California? California gets less from the federal government than they give to the federal government. The reverse is true for most southern states.

They are referring to how California residents contribute more in federal tax dollars than they get back, making it a donor state. Florida gets more federal dollars than the residents contribute, which did surprise me, but it appears to be the case. However, it is not necessarily California residents subsidizing Florida. The residents of New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts all contribute a significantly greater positive balance in federal taxes than do residents of California.

2 people with the same income get different benefits, if one lives in a red state, and the other in a blue state. The red state is a net recipient of federal funding, the blue state is a net provider. Most red state economies would implode without this fire-hose of free money. Texas or Florida might be okay, the rest, not so much.The same thing plays out on the state level. Eastern Washington loves to complain about taxes, and I would love nothing more than to let it have its wish... As long

Currently it may be true that Californians pay (slightly) more to the federal government than they get back when compared to Texas (17.8% vs 20.5%)[0], that wasn’t always the case. In 2016, for example, California was bringing back around 25% of federal dollars vs Texas 15%.In 2023 California was 41st in terms of paid federal tax vs benefit. It was lower than Florida, for example, which like Texas, doesn’t have an income tax. Per capita, California isn’t some huge outlier for GDP or even the