economic health of states

[PaulS]

According to fed. stats. doc. that I'm looking at, it seems like the maj. of the states listed above that have budget surplus' get more back in federal aid than they send to Washington. It also seems that states that consistantly vote liberal all give more to Washington then they get back. Is this the transfer of wealth we have all heard about? I'm sure a lot of it has to do with the amount of aid to their citizens in need? If so, it comes down to how the citizens of the state think they should be treating their citizens who are less fortunate than themselves.

I prev. found a doc. and attached it in another thread but it is from 2004 and couldn't find anything newer. It is called per capita tax burden and return of federal dollar. Maybe someone has the most recent ones. For some reason I can attach it b/c it said I attached it previously.

I'll still take living in Conn. over Ky. any day.

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by PaulS

I'm sure a lot of it has to do with the amount of aid to their citizens in need? If so, it comes down to how the citizens of the state think they should be treating their citizens who are less fortunate than themselves.

.

"I'm sure a lot of it has to do with the amount of aid to their citizens in need?"

That's pure, wild speculation, until you have data to suggest that CT's 'trade deficit' with the feds is a large contributor.

I, however, have data that specifically supports my argument that it's public employee benefits that are driving this, not the fact that CT federal tax dollars go elsewhere...read this link...

Report: Connecticut lags in tackling retirement benefit costs | The Connecticut Mirror

As of 2011, CT's unfunded liabilites for retirement and healthcare benefits to public employees was $42 billion.

Now read this...

List of U.S. states and territories by population - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

CT's population is 3.6 million.

So, if the 3.6 million CT residents each owe a debt to public unionized employees of $42 billion, that works out to $11,667 of union benefit debt per citizen. Since CT's total debt per citizen is $49,000, that means that 24% of the total debt is directly attributable to benefits for public unionized employees.

In other words, union perks have created debt of $11.667 for every CT citizen.

Are you suggesting that the average CT citizen loses that much in federal income tax to other states? Even if that's true, it doesn't matter, because CT's state taxes more than make up for that.

Look at this chart, which looks at CT's tax rates over time...

Connecticut's State and Local Tax Burden, 1977-2009 | Tax Foundation

In 2009, the latest year of the study, the average CT citizen paid $5,151 in state/local taxes. The countrywide average was $2,106 in other states. So, even though each CT citizen paid two and a half times more to the state than residents of other states, we have by far the largest debt per citizen. And again, that ignores the hundreds of millions the state got ffrom the casinos...

Is the debt solely because of public unions? Of course not. It's also because of stupid liberal projects like spending $550 million on a 9-mile busway from New Britain (a city that's a failed experiment in liberalism) to Hartford (another city that's a failed experiment in liberalism).