$/population is more useful, but even more useful would be "revenue - spending" or "(revenue - spending) / population". I suspect that California would be posit

$/population is more useful, but even more useful would be "revenue - spending" or "(revenue - spending) / population". I suspect that California would be positive, while smaller rural states would be negative. Federal programs are supposed to benefit multiple states, so it's sad that there are so many programs that benefit specific states: Something like the interstate highway is useful to California citizens/businesses even though most of the highway isn't maintained by California and the money isn't given to California. So an argument that California pays "more than its fair share" for the highway isn't convincing. Contrast the highway with Medicare, where the benefits accrue to each state individually. An argument that California pays "more than its fair share" for Medicare would be more convincing to me.