The Tax Foundation has published a list of the states that pay more in taxes than they get back (benefactor states) and those that get more than pay (welfare queen states)

Interestingly, the former seem to tend to be blue states, while the latter seem to tend to be red states. What's that all about?

http://www.taxfoundation.org/press/show/22659.html

Very interesting! Especially since I am from Jersey (a blue state).

Are you talking about what states send the fed or what individuals send the state?

Old info- FY 2005 RANKINGS

What the population of a state sends to DC and how much comes back.

I think it is what states send the feds and how much some states get back in proportion to what they've sent. Meaning a state sends $.25 for every dollar and receives $1.25 back from the feds. Then again it could be something completely different.

i have no idea what all that means... but it looked like DC was the highest of them all, over double what any other said...

Well then it's obvious.

Republicans are better at sucking the federal t)) than democrats.

i think democrats are better at sucking...because they do

It doesn't mean they pay it out in welfare. Many red states have much lower populations but bigger areas. They still have to maintain roads, law enforcement, fire safety, schools etc. With less people you get less money. With more area it costs more money. That seems like a very fair observation. Texas is a huge state but is more populated thus it is on the lower end but they also have no state income tax. If they did I bet they would bring in even more money.

shhh... the dems here were talking about that...

I guess my response was so logical it broke the thread.

If you want to believe that, be my guest. No, I am in a dead zone for my mi-fi, and I can only use th company mi-fi for a limited time, and frankly, I'ld rather use most of it texting my GF.

I never thought of Virginia, Mississippi, Louisiana as sparsely populated. I think more likely, Much of that federal money gets sent back to the welfare queen states because of the Military bases they tend to have.

New york city population over 8 million. Louisiana state population 4.5 million.

that might make a weal argument for the roads, but virtually none of the other factors you mention because those are all population-variable. Doesn't really change anything anyway, does it? Some states are welfare queens. Others are benefactors. The red states tend to be teat-suckers

hell houston alone has 4.5 million in it lol

No you need more police and firefighters and schools by area.

[QUOTE}No you need more police and firefighters and schools by area.

I can see that you don't spend much time in rural areas. There are very few law enforcement types in sparsely populated areas, and fire departments are almost exclusively volunteer. I'm in Mt Hood National Forest, where we are advised that there are only dedicated law enforcement agents for the whole area. They have a cooperative arangement with County Sheriff's departments from the closest urban areas, to help out in extreme situations, but their response time is very long.

We can continue this if you wish to keep arguing just to be arguing, but you really do seem to be just shooting from the hip.

I am not saying there is a lot, but there are stations. I would argue it cost more to build many smaller stations than a few larger ones. I am not just talking rural areas. There are plenty of cities in these states they are just not huge. Lots of decent sized cities in bigger states.

I am giving alternative solutions. You have not proved it is welfare spending. Fire fighters themselves may be volunteers but who pays for the station and the trucks?

LOL

I believe the "welfare" that is being referred to is the states that "need" or take more federal money period, not what goes to welfare from the money.

And it makes sense that they would take more federal funding, their constituents believe that they shouldn't have to pay taxes in general so the states need the federal teet much more. In the bluer states the people pay their taxes more willingly and will vote for tax raises to improve their state or the country for that matter.