3 ms·

The UK spends ~£6 Billion/yr on EU. Total UK Budget is £620 Billion. Sources: UK Budget: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/may/17/uk-public-spendin

by _grrr 16y ago

The UK spends ~£6 Billion/yr on EU. Total UK Budget is £620 Billion. Sources: UK Budget: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/may/17/uk-public-spending-departments-money-cuts# http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/may/17/uk-publi... EU Contributions: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8036096.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8036096.stm Afraid I don't have figures for US.

roel_v 16y ago
This BBC is a very nice summary, thanks. It looks like it accounts for payments that are not directly to the Member States too, which is the hardest part to account for (I base this on the total payments to France which must include the CAP (agricultural) subsidies). I have only briefly searched for a couple of reference countries, but it seems that about 1% of the state budget contribution to the EU is the 'normal' amount, with the 'net' expenditures (after discounting for income) is only 30% of that at most (for Germany, for the lesser net contributors that number drops exponentially). So that seems very small, certainly less than I had expected. Then again, most the most expensive government jobs (social security, medical insurance, pensions) are governed at Member State level, so maybe it shouldn't be that surprising. So anyway, then we can reduce the original question to 'is there more than 1% income redistribution between states in the US'. Which I think there will be, since Medicaid and SS are federal programs, right? Plus military spending, which redistributes from states without bases or research to states who do have them, and which makes up a big part of the federal budget. Maybe my initial feeling was wrong, and there is much more redistribution between US States than there is between EU Member States. I'd love to spend the rest of my day researching but I'm afraid I don't have time for that ;)

by _grrr 16y ago

roel_v 16y ago

This BBC is a very nice summary, thanks. It looks like it accounts for payments that are not directly to the Member States too, which is the hardest part to account for (I base this on the total payments to France which must include the CAP (agricultural) subsidies). I have only briefly searched for a couple of reference countries, but it seems that about 1% of the state budget contribution to the EU is the 'normal' amount, with the 'net' expenditures (after discounting for income) is only 30% of that at most (for Germany, for the lesser net contributors that number drops exponentially). So that seems very small, certainly less than I had expected. Then again, most the most expensive government jobs (social security, medical insurance, pensions) are governed at Member State level, so maybe it shouldn't be that surprising. So anyway, then we can reduce the original question to 'is there more than 1% income redistribution between states in the US'. Which I think there will be, since Medicaid and SS are federal programs, right? Plus military spending, which redistributes from states without bases or research to states who do have them, and which makes up a big part of the federal budget. Maybe my initial feeling was wrong, and there is much more redistribution between US States than there is between EU Member States. I'd love to spend the rest of my day researching but I'm afraid I don't have time for that ;)