Eastern Oregon Bear said:
bear2034 said:
The state of Florida gave back $900 million of taxpayer money to the federal government thanks to DOGE.
I highly approve of a leech state like Florida returning almost a billion dollars to the federal government. Let's go Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas!
Exactly how is Florida a 'leech' state? I assume you're referring to the flow of federal funds, and that there is a net inflow of funds in Florida. The implication is almost always that these funds are flowing between
states. But that's not the case, most federal funds, either directly or indirectly, flow between
people. I have three uncles who spent their entire working lives in New York and then retired to Florida.
They sent funds to the feds when they were in New York and now
they receive Social Security and Medicare benefits in Florida. How does that make Florida a 'leech'? How does this impact the finances of the two states?
However, there is at least one case where state finances are involved, and that's federal medicaid funding. California receives about $40 billion in federal medicaid funding; for Mississippi, it's $5.2 billion. But that doesn't mean California's being subsidized in part by Mississippi. In fact, it's the opposite, because the feds cover over 80% of Mississippi's medicaid cost, but only 50% of California's.
See how complicated this is. You have to see which federal funds only impact people. For funds that impact state financing, you have to make sure that you're putting things in comparable terms.