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Alot of revenue is siphoned out of the urban, prosperous areas in the United States and sent to the rural backwaters. Flyover country receives more money from t
by Prrometheus 18y ago
Alot of revenue is siphoned out of the urban, prosperous areas in the United States and sent to the rural backwaters. Flyover country receives more money from the feds than it pays in federal taxes, and the dense and rich regions face the opposite calculus.
Hong Kong imposes an 18% flat tax on its citizens. New York City could never get away with that, since its citizens already pay about half their incomes to the feds. Instead New York runs on a 3% tax, and I don't think the services they get from the feds make up for lost value.
If New York city got 15% more of its citizens income, hell yeah it could build a magnetic anti-gravity bullet train run off of angel farts. But it has its share to pay of pork projects in Alaska and troop presence in 170 countries.
- kingkongrevenge 18y agoThat's perhaps a little simplistic. New Yorker fund managers wouldn't be skimming their millions off mid-westerner's retirement accounts were it not for Washington.
- yummyfajitas 18y agoNew York also wastes ridiculous amounts of money on local pork. Housing lotteries (the city buys 50% of a house for a few lucky people), bloated salaries for MTA workers, dance police (1), and most programs are extremely inefficient (housing projects in manhattan? why not move them to Jamaica, and save money?). Perhaps NY could spend that extra 15% effectively. But it would probably just be wasted. (1) If patrons dance or sway to music in a bar without a cabaret license, the police will ticket the bar owner. As of 3 weeks ago, the cops were actively patrolling for this.