Posted on 09/22/2020 4:07:36 AM PDT by knighthawk
I looked at that link, and...I would be careful about drawing conclusions from that article. IMO, there are too many undefined terms there.
I am personally not a fan of Business Insider.
I have long thought they lean far to the Left, and this theme about Blue states pulling the financial weight of the Red states and letting them skate is a VERY common trope advanced by the Left, that conservative states like Florida and Texas get more money from the Federal government than say, New York or Massachusetts. (And this article linked, as one of its two links, a report by the New York State Comptroller, in a completely whining biased report talking about how New York is being abused by this. The other link provided was in a sentence “Federal Tax Money” which, silly me, thought might explain “what ARE those “grants” or “federal services”, but was instead a silly link to their own article “12 terrible things that could happen if you don’t do your taxes”.
From the article: “...A lot of federal tax money is immediately rerouted back to the states in the form of grants, which the state uses to spend on resources. But in some states, some taxpayers are left spending more in taxes than what they receive back in federal services...”
But this article does not define how much money is given, or even more importantly, what that money actually IS.
Could any of that possibly be highway funds or grants? Texas has 679,917 miles of roadway, and Massachusetts has 77,557. If any of those “grants” are related back to transportation, there might be a BIG difference there.
Or coastline projects? Florida has 1,350 miles of coastline, Massachusetts has 192 miles, and Texas has 367 miles, both of which are probably HUGE recipients of federal money, probably due to being busy international and oil ports. Massachusetts has...Boston.
Or those monies might even have something to do with military bases perhaps not direct operations money, but...related in some way...
Texas has Medical Education and Training Campus Fort Sam Houston, TX, Corpus Christi Army Depot, TX, Biggs Army Air Field at Fort Bliss in El Paso, TX, Martindale Army Airfield Army Base in San Antonio, TX, Camp Swift Army Base in Bastrop County, TX, Camp Stanley Storage Activity Army in San Antonio, TX, Camp Mabry Army Base in Austin, TX, Camp Bullis Army Base in San Antonio, TX, Camp Bowie Army Base in Brownwood, TX, Red River Army Depot Army Base I in Bowie County, TX, NAS Kingsville Navy Base in Kingsville, TX, NS Ingleside Navy Base in Ingleside, TX, JRB Fort Worth Navy Base in Forth Worth, TX, NAS Corpus Christi Navy Base in Flour Bluff, TX, Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, TX, Randolph Air Force Base in Universal City, TX, Laughlin Air Force Base in Del Rio, TX, Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, TX, Goodfellow Air Force Base in San Angelo, TX, Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene, TX, Brooks City Air Force Base in San Antonio, TX, Fort Sam Houston Army Base in San Antonio, TX, Fort Hood Army Base in Killeen, TX, and Fort Bliss Army Base in El Paso, TX
Florida has United States Southern Command, Naval Air Station Jacksonville, Naval Air Station Key West, Naval Air Station Pensacola, Naval Air Station Whiting Field, Naval Station Mayport, Naval Support Activity Panama City, Pensacola Florida Military Bases, United States Southern Command, Florida, Eglin Air Force Base, Hurlburt Field, MacDill Air Force Base, Patrick Air Force Base, Pensacola Florida Military Bases, Tyndall Air Force Base, and United States Southern Command.
Massachusetts has only Hanscom AFB, and Westover AFB, and I can tell you from personal experience, military presence there now is very, very small (Westover is still a reserve base). It is mostly commercial now at both.
I had to look at various things that are related directly or indirectly to Census counts...for Massachusetts, I was able to find this:
Special Education Grants to States
SFY 2019: $290.9 million
Title 1 Grants to Local Education Agencies
SFY 2019: $244.4 million
Head Start/Early Head Start
FFY 2017: $156.5 million
Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)
SFY 2019: $79.0 million
Child Care Development Fund Mandatory and Matching Fund – Entitlement
SFY 2019: $75.5 million
Child Care Development Block Grant – Discretionary
SFY 2019: $35.3 million
State Vocational Rehabilitation Services Program
SFY 2019: $47.4 million
Social Services Block Grant
SFY 2019: $33.2 million
Community Development Block Grant—Entitlement and Non-Entitlement
FFY 2017: $31.2 million (Entitlement grants)
FFY 2017: $29.8 million (Non-entitlement grants)
Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP)
SFY 2019: $600.5 million (only a portion of this affected by Census counts)
Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP)
SFY 2019: $136.5 million
I would have liked to do a comparison, but I don’t have time...but these Federal funds listed above are DIRECTLY related to census numbers, and Texas has 28,995,881 citizens, Florida has 21,477,737, and Massachusetts has 6,949,943
A good number to keep in mind is the percent of the total state budget that Federal grants and money back to the states make up, and Massachusetts is 28%, Texas is 32%, and Florida is 33%, so they do get more than Massachusetts as a percentage of the budget by 4-5%.
I think you may get my point-that Business Insider article has holes so big you could drive a supertanker through them because they simply don’t define their terms and left it up to the reader to figure that out, which...nobody is going to try to do except people like you and me!
These studies have been done in the past.
Billionaires to illegals and poor ratio is what drives them—with cost of living added in for good measure.
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