Sunday, September 14, 2008

American politics: how much does blue subsidize red?

I took a table showing total appropriations by state from Federal Dollars: What Came to and Left Your State in 2005 and color-coded each row by whether the state went for Bush or Kerry in 2004. Sadly, I couldn't find post-2006 numbers yet. I would have been interested to see how things changed after the 2006 election, but those numbers probably won't be available until 2009 or 2010.
State Rank1Per dollar expenditures2Total Expenditures (millions)3 IRS Collection (millions)4 Total Expenditures per Capita
United States N/A $1.01 $2,284,760 $2,268,895.12 $7,568
New Mexico 1 $3.10 $20,604 $6,642.05 $10,698
Mississippi 2 $2.96 $26,181 $8,859.59 $9,001
West Virginia 3 $2.94 $16,087 $5,469.75 $8,868
Alaska 4 $2.62 $9,230 $3,519.75 $13,916
North Dakota 5 $2.26 $6,608 $2,928.61 $10,413
Montana 6 $2.17 $7,814 $3,596.11 $8,359
District of Columbia 7 $2.08 $37,859 $18,189.10 $65,045
Alabama 8 $2.06 $42,061 $20,398.81 $9,248
Maine 9 $1.99 $11,356 $5,717.40 $8,615
South Dakota 10 $1.95 $7,481 $3,844.24 $9,655
Hawaii 11 $1.90 $12,699 $6,680.48 $9,974
South Carolina 12 $1.89 $32,044 $16,972.41 $7,545
Kentucky 13 $1.82 $34,653 $19,035.72 $8,305
Virginia 14 $1.75 $95,097 $54,430.45 $12,572
Wyoming 15 $1.55 $4,782 $3,086.24 $9,399
Louisiana 16 $1.55 $39,628 $25,647.32 $8,792
Arizona 17 $1.53 $44,639 $29,177.14 $7,498
Maryland 18 $1.42 $66,720 $46,824.58 $11,936
Vermont 19 $1.40 $4,645 $3,311.37 $7,463
Utah 20 $1.27 $14,823 $11,648.47 $5,952
Idaho 21 $1.23 $9,598 $7,808.79 $6,715
Missouri 22 $1.22 $48,273 $39,555.06 $8,326
Iowa 23 $1.19 $20,345 $17,167.63 $6,860
Florida 24 $1.16 $134,544 $115,562.30 $7,572
Oregon 25 $1.16 $22,792 $19,713.74 $6,263
Tennessee 26 $1.15 $48,288 $42,060.54 $8,108
Indiana 27 $1.12 $42,347 $37,751.79 $6,758
Kansas 28 $1.09 $20,492 $18,798.43 $7,457
Pennsylvania 29 $1.05 $99,503 $95,087.60 $8,021
New Hampshire 30 $1.02 $8,331 $8,205.04 $6,375
Washington 31 $1.01 $46,338 $45,996.76 $7,365
North Carolina 32 $0.98 $59,162 $60,525.67 $6,822
Oklahoma 33 $0.97 $27,637 $28,510.40 $7,799
Michigan 34 $0.95 $64,787 $68,500.02 $6,414
California 35 $0.91 $242,023 $265,783.66 $6,694
Georgia 36 $0.91 $59,846 $66,063.78 $6,553
Wisconsin 37 $0.89 $33,749 $37,973.25 $6,105
Texas 38 $0.88 $148,683 $169,392.72 $6,485
Massachusetts 39 $0.87 $55,830 $64,373.14 $8,678
Rhode Island 40 $0.87 $8,423 $9,712.56 $7,846
Arkansas 41 $0.85 $20,387 $24,012.31 $7,345
Nevada 42 $0.84 $14,089 $16,710.69 $5,840
Colorado 43 $0.83 $31,173 $37,769.49 $6,685
Ohio 44 $0.80 $77,881 $96,836.57 $6,790
Nebraska 45 $0.79 $12,785 $16,121.65 $7,272
New York 46 $0.73 $144,876 $198,562.27 $7,500
Illinois 47 $0.68 $80,778 $119,182.24 $6,328
Connecticut 48 $0.67 $30,774 $46,131.12 $8,791
New Jersey 49 $0.57 $58,617 $101,997.48 $6,735
Minnesota 50 $0.46 $31,067 $67,148.61 $6,060
Delaware 51 $0.42 $5,495 $13,227.40 $6,528
Other N/A $2.45 $40,837 $16,672.85 N/A
(1) According to Ratio of Amount Returned per Dollar Paid in Taxes. (2) Expenditures in State per Dollar Paid by State Taxpayers. (3) CFFR in millions. (4) IRS Total Collection (in millions)

Red states received $1,177,262 million (almost $1.2 trillion) back from the federal government, after sending $1,009,904.48 million ($1 trillion) collected by the IRS.

Blue states received $1,066,662 million in federal spending (approximately $1 trillion). The IRS collected 1,242,317.82 million ($1.24 trillion) from blue states. That means a total outflow of $175,655.82 million, or approximately $176 billion dollars. And as you can see from the chart above, many of the harder core blue states are the biggest losers.

Pass that chart around to all your smug neocon friends!