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"one of the richest, most productive states sends most of its revenue to DC where it is spent on wars and bailouts." This argument is pretty disingenuous. Cal
by pmorici 17y ago
"one of the richest, most productive states sends most of its revenue to DC where it is spent on wars and bailouts."
This argument is pretty disingenuous. California is a huge beneficiary of defense spending and tax dollars [1] in general and California, San Francisco in particular is a huge beneficiary of federal bail out dollars.
[1] http://www.nationalpriorities.org/publications/what_came_to_and_left_your_state_in_2005 http://www.nationalpriorities.org/publications/what_came_to_... Notice table 4 shows Southern California received nearly 2 dollars for every dollar it's residents paid in taxes in 2005. Also notice that California is the number one recipient in defense related contracts by dollar amount. California isn't the most productive state in terms of tax dollars per capita either in fact it looks like they rank near the bottom in the amount of federal tax paid per capita.
- grandalf 17y agoWhy is tax dollars per capita a remotely relevant measurement? California is the 5th largest economy in the world and it generates tremendous revenues for the Federal government from businesses and individuals. Also, your argument is self-contradictory since if you care about per-capita spending, California ranks very low in per-capita spending on DoD contracts.
- pmorici 17y agoTax dollars per capita is relevant because one of your arguments was that people in CA are more "productive" than any other state. If earnings is a measure of productivity and taxes are a reflection of earnings then lower per capita taxes paid is indicative of lower productivity. It's not contradictory. It follows that if you put the least in per person it's only fair that you get the least out. But, in fact they get about 2 times out what they pay in if those numbers are correct so really I'd say its your argument that is just based on emotion and not backed up by any facts. Yes California pays a lot of tax in total because it is the largest in population not because there is anything inherently special about it's culture, population, or economy, compared to the rest of the country.
- grandalf 17y agoYou seem to be conflating the individual statistics and aggregate statistics to suit your argument. Because of California's high cost of living, a worker in California will make a higher income (but live at the same standard of living) as a worker in another state. This results in the worker paying higher Federal taxes and (often) more Social Security taxes than the equivalent worker in another state (both of which drastically outweigh the amount paid in state taxes -- state and municipal taxes cover most of the ways that people interact with government). All of these are somewhat tangential points... The bottom line is that California's own budget woes pale in comparison to the massive Federal deficit (which we know will certainly result in drastic cuts to Federal entitlements and increases in Federal taxes in the future).
- pmorici 17y agoWell yeah neither is good but you seemed to be arguing that because the federal government is doing something stupid California should be allowed to participate in the stupidity as well.