[Hodar]

On average, blue states pay more to the federal government than they receive in services, while of course on average red states take in more than they pay out.

Do you have any sources for this? This is the first time I've heard of this phenomena

[Sherman Logan]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-19/blame-fdr-and-lbj-for-moocher-paradox-in-red-states.html

There are lots of sources if you look for them. The problem is that as you might expect most of those writing about this are liberal, so if you reference one here, it is automatically dismissed. Conservatives, for fairly obvious reasons, are a lot more likely to talk about the higher average giving to charity by conservatives, etc. The above reference is at least not Slate or Huffpo.

But it isn’t hard to track down the amount of federal taxes paid by each state versus the amount of federal money expended in each state for yourself.

Comparisons are subject to all sorts of games, of course. Do you count in federal expenditures for defense contracts, for instance? What about military payrolls? Bases, largely for climate reasons, are mostly located in the South.