Wednesday, December 12, 2012
How Much of Each State's Budget Comes From the Feds: From 24% (Alaska) to 49% (Mississippi)
The Tax Foundation map below looks at "how much of each state's budget comes from the federal government. Mississippi tops the list with 49% of its general revenue coming from Washington; Alaska, by contrast, gets only 24% of its general revenue from the feds."
https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2012/12/how-much.html
Comments
Woody look at dollars per capita....thats all that counts.....
Posted by: Sid | Dec 12, 2012 8:11:21 PM
Blue states have higher tax rates and much larger levels of government spending, so of course they will have a lower share of government revenue contributing to their massive spending.
This is surprising to whom exactly?
Posted by: Todd | Dec 12, 2012 8:06:02 PM
If a state has a smaller budget the same money amount from the Feds would become larger. That is the intrinsic problem of using % as a base for analysis.
The second error comes when disregarding the fact that federal tax revenue should return to the state.
Better to look at federal tax sent and federal funds received.
Posted by: Huan | Dec 12, 2012 7:02:09 PM
Change the percentages to actual dollars and reanalyze the map. Mississippi is nothing compared to California.
Posted by: Woody | Dec 12, 2012 9:25:37 AM
Eight of the top ten feeding at the federal trough are red states. Eight of the ten most self-sufficient are blue states. Numbers 50 and 48 among the self-sffucieint are Alaska and North Dakota, which basically finance their state budgets with oil revenue. Interestingly, the number 3 oil-extracter, Texas, is the #11 trough feeder.
Why am I not surprised?
Posted by: Publius Novus | Dec 12, 2012 8:41:32 AM
Haun and Todd make a good point. Some states keep their budgets to a minimum rather than waste taxpayer money on things like exorbitant wages and pensions for public employee unions. Those frugal states aren't necessarily receiving disproportionate funding than other states with their bloated state budgets.
Sid, "dollars per capita" is only a statistic and is fairly meaningless in tracking spending without considering total population numbers. It not only isn't "all that counts," it doesn't even count.
Posted by: Woody | Dec 13, 2012 7:36:09 AM