Federal taxation and spending by state

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The ability of the government to tax and spend in specific regions has large implications to economic activity and performance. Taxes are highly indexed to wages and profits and therefore places of high taxation are geographically found in areas with higher per capita income and more economic activity.

Spending is largely focused on areas of poverty, the elderly, and centers of federal employment such as military bases. The regional relationship between net contributions to the federal budget and voting trends is interesting.

Background

See also: United States federal budget, Federal tax revenue by state, Expenditures in the United States federal budget, and Demographics of the United States

The ability of the government to tax and spend in specific regions has large implications to economic activity and performance. The main question behind this issue stems into three different approaches. First, federal spending should be neutral, meaning federal taxation should roughly equal expenditures. Second, it should be redistributive, meaning rich states should be taxed more heavily and poorer states should receive more benefits. Third, spending and taxation should be accidental per se, meaning higher taxation should be performed based on income but with little relation to geographic region and spending should be done where it allows for the most efficiency. The main issue driving this research is the question between equity and equality (Leonard and Walder, Page 17).

Typically, it is seen taxes are highly indexed to wages and therefore places of high taxation are geographically found in areas with higher per capita income. The problem with taxation indexed to wages is that it does not consider cost of living. In areas with higher per capita income, it is highly likely that the cost of living is also higher; for instance, this is the case in New York. The effect of not indexing to costs of living makes some states look wealthier compared to others. It is typical that states with low costs of living receive more in spending than states with high costs of living (Leonard and Walder, Page 19). After discounting income with costs of living, New York's poverty level increases a significant amount (Pear, Page 2). The significance level between high levels of poverty and high taxation may be arguable.

Spending is not so easily located geographically. The breakdown of federal spending is done in the following ways: defense (military), non-defense discretionary, Social Security, Medicare, grants, and various other programs. Defense spending is the most volatile, as it is usually found to be higher in states with established defense contractors and other defense facilities. Areas of higher social insurance spending are typically seen in areas of larger elderly population. Social security is the dominant expenditure of per dollar federal expenditures.

Other factors of spending are largely political in the sense that politicians who can effectively argue for more spending get the most spending for their states. Some trends of spending as of 1999 are as follows: defense spending in the South and the national capital, non-defense discretionary spending between the Midwest and the Rockies, most Medicare and Social Security is located in the East and Central/Midwest, and other assistance programs following the Appalachian Mountains from Louisiana/Mississippi to Maine (Leonard and Walder, Page 30).

Trends

The balance of payments receipts has typically remained fairly stable over the past fifteen years with limited changes between those states with net benefits and those with net contributions. The Fisc states that the federal deficit increased due to human resource expenditures, increased tax cuts, and increased military expenditure during the 1980s. The Fisc further reports that in expectations and defense spending declined in the 1990s one would expect the expenditure per state to decrease along with the government. However, some states, such as Kentucky, Idaho and Oklahoma, actually saw large increases in defense spending, which increased their BOP. Overall, though, increases in non-defense spending were not on the same magnitude as the decline of defense spending (Leonard and Walder, Page 36-39).

The report argues that defense and Social Security/Medicare have a small negative correlation, and as a result large reductions in defense spending do not bode well for increases in spending on Social Security or Medicare. Defense expenditures tend to be the most volatile over time and state, however, total expenditures are roughly constant, which means that increases (decreases) in defense correlate with decreases (increases) in other non-defense and non- social insurance expenditures. Income taxes used to finance expenditures are not extremely volatile around the national average.

Changes in expenditure

Decrease in defense expenditure has been a large key to overall changes in expenditure, both in salaries for bases and for procurement of defense. Due to restructuring or closing military bases, as determined by the Base Closure and Realignment Commission, most states have incurred declines in defense spending via salaries. California, with 24 recommendations for closure or realignment, has had the largest decline in defense spending, which attributes to a loss of roughly $50 billion dollars, given the population increase since the early 1980s. Most states have also seen decline in procurement defense spending, but eight states have seen it increase, and in Kentucky's case it has doubled (Leonard and Walder, Page 36-39, 44-47).

Social Security has increased in expenditure primarily in the Southern states. It was thought that since the largest expenditure is retirement aid that social security expenditure was following the elderly. However, this was not the case, as the data did not correlate between elderly population and increases in social security expenditure. Further expenditures in social security are caused by the increase in disability insurance. The Fisc argues that the later policy changes in the 1980s involving beneficiary eligibility may have a time lag, meaning the causes of those changes are just now being felt. Medicare costs have continued to increase as well as the population ages and as health care costs increase. Most of the increased expenditure has been seen in the south. Grants have increased, but have been relatively stable over the fifteen-year period taken into consideration. The largest increase has been in the form of Medicaid expenditures (Leonard and Walder, Page 47-54).

The changes in taxes have remained fairly stable over time, and are strongly correlated with income per capita per state. It follows that as state's per capita income rises, its tax receipt also increases. The data between changes in per capita taxes to the national averages in ratio to the changes in the per capita income to the national average has a correlation of .88 (Leonard and Walder, Page 56-57).

History of Federal Monitoring of Taxation and Spending by State

The monitoring of federal spending and taxation and its variation between states in the United States began in 1977 under a query run by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Democratic senator of New York. The query was designed to determine whether the state of New York was paying more in taxes than it was receiving in federal spending. The determination is made by looking at an individual state's balance of payments (BOP), which is total income minus outlays.

Initially, many thought New York was a net gainer, receiving more funding than it was paying out in taxes, because of large payments to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, but in actuality, those payments were interest payments on the United States federal debt, which were distributed to foreign individuals and governments for purchasing of US Treasury bonds (Leonard and Walder, Page 9). After separating those expenditures from actual expenditures in New York, it was found that the state was actually a donor. This event stimulated more controversy over the topic of spending and taxation.

After the Federal Community Services Administration noticed the flaw in the balance of payments in New York, they revised its data and provided the revised data under the title, The Geographical Distribution of Federal Expenditures, which was used in determining the expenditures for this analysis. This is now entitled: "the Fisc".

Politics and Controversy of Unequal Contributions by States to the Federal Budget

The US Constitution requires that direct taxes be apportioned to the states according to their population, so that per capita revenues from the states would be equal. Indirect taxes do not have this restriction. After a supreme court case held that an income tax on income derived from property was in the same category as a direct tax on property, the 16th amendment was passed to allow indirect taxation on income in proportion to their income, from what ever source. Since that time, taxation as well as spending per capita has ranged widely between the states. (See table below). At the same time, one of the great controversies of national politics has become whether to increase or decrease federal spending and the size of the federal government, with Republicans largely in favor of decreasing its size and Democrats pushing to keep it the same or increase it.

Several commentators have pointed out that the states that benefit the most by federal spending are the very states whose populations tend to vote for leaders who promise to reduce federal spending, while those that benefit the least from large government vote for politicians who promise to make it even larger at their expense. In other words, Democratic-leaning states tend to be net contributors to the federal budget while Republican-leaning states are more often net recipients of federal spending. Various explanations for this seemingly contradictory situation exist.

Table of Federal Taxation and Spending by State

This is a table of the total federal tax revenue by state collected by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service in 2007 and the total federal expenditure in each state in Fiscal Year 2007. US Census population data are used to calculate per capita figures. The difference between the per capita revenue and spending figures is the net contribution of each state to the federal budget. The rank is based on highest net contributors. The last three columns are included in order to facilitate evaluation of the perception discussed in the section above.

Revenue is gross collections which indicates the total federal tax revenue collected by the IRS from each U.S. state, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. The figure includes all individual and corporate income taxes, estate taxes, gift taxes, and excise taxes. This table does not include federal tax revenue data from U.S. Armed Forces personnel stationed overseas, U.S. territories other than Puerto Rico, and U.S. citizens and legal residents living abroad.

Spending includes all federal outlays consisting of retirement, disability, and other direct payments; grants; procurement; and salaries and wages. Spending does not include interest on the debt and other spending not allocated by state.

All state totals are in millions of dollars and all per capita averages are in dollars. All columns are sortable both high to low and low to high.

Rank	State	Revenue (millions)	Population	Revenue per capita	Spending (millions)	Spending per capita	Net contribution per capita	Presidential majority 2000/2004	Presidential majority 2008	Presidential majority 2012
1	Delaware	$16,858	864,764	$19,494	$6,234	$7,209	$12,285	Gore/Kerry	Obama	Obama
2	Minnesota	$78,697	5,197,621	$15,141	$40,075	$7,710	$7,431	Gore/Kerry	Obama	Obama
3	New Jersey	$121,678	8,685,920	$14,009	$63,972	$7,365	$6,644	Gore/Kerry	Obama	Obama
4	Connecticut	$54,236	3,502,309	$15,486	$32,378	$9,245	$6,241	Gore/Kerry	Obama	Obama
5	New York	$244,673	19,297,729	$12,679	$157,789	$8,177	$4,502	Gore/Kerry	Obama	Obama
6	Illinois	$135,458	12,852,548	$10,539	$88,669	$6,899	$3,640	Gore/Kerry	Obama	Obama
7	Nebraska	$19,043	1,774,571	$10,731	$13,986	$7,881	$2,850	Bush	McCain	Romney
8	Rhode Island	$11,967	1,057,832	$11,313	$9,077	$8,581	$2,732	Gore/Kerry	Obama	Obama
9	Texas	$225,391	23,904,380	$9,429	$171,766	$7,186	$2,243	Bush	McCain	Romney
10	Colorado	$45,404	4,861,515	$9,340	$34,828	$7,164	$2,176	Bush	Obama	Obama
11	Massachusetts	$74,782	6,449,755	$11,595	$61,028	$9,462	$2,133	Gore/Kerry	Obama	Obama
12	Arkansas	$27,340	2,834,797	$9,644	$22,454	$7,921	$1,723	Bush	McCain	Romney
13	Nevada	$19,619	2,565,382	$7,648	$15,474	$6,032	$1,616	Bush	Obama	Obama
14	California	$313,999	36,553,215	$8,590	$260,422	$7,124	$1,466	Gore/Kerry	Obama	Obama
15	North Carolina	$75,904	9,061,032	$8,377	$65,863	$7,269	$1,108	Bush	Obama	Romney
16	Wisconsin	$43,778	5,601,640	$7,815	$38,177	$6,815	$1,000	Gore/Kerry	Obama	Obama
17	Washington	$57,450	6,468,424	$8,882	$52,455	$8,109	$773	Gore/Kerry	Obama	Obama
18	Georgia	$75,218	9,544,750	$7,881	$71,079	$7,447	$433	Bush	McCain	Romney
19	Ohio	$105,773	11,466,917	$9,224	$105,214	$9,175	$49	Bush	Obama	Obama
20	Kansas	$22,311	2,775,997	$8,037	$22,737	$8,191	$-154	Bush	McCain	Romney
21	Michigan	$69,924	10,071,822	$6,943	$71,652	$7,114	$-171	Gore/Kerry	Obama	Obama
22	New Hampshire	$9,304	1,315,828	$7,071	$9,764	$7,420	$-349	Bush/Kerry	Obama	Obama
23	Oklahoma	$29,325	3,617,316	$8,107	$30,686	$8,483	$-376	Bush	McCain	Romney
24	Pennsylvania	$112,368	12,432,792	$9,038	$117,151	$9,423	$-385	Gore/Kerry	Obama	Obama
25	Oregon	$23,467	3,747,455	$6,262	$25,242	$6,736	$-474	Gore/Kerry	Obama	Obama
26	Florida	$136,476	18,251,243	$7,478	$147,091	$8,059	$-581	Bush	Obama	Obama
27	Tennessee	$47,747	6,156,719	$7,755	$51,456	$8,358	$-603	Bush	McCain	Romney
28	Indiana	$42,668	6,345,289	$6,724	$47,254	$7,447	$-723	Bush	Obama	Romney
29	Utah	$15,064	2,645,330	$5,694	$17,158	$6,486	$-792	Bush	McCain	Romney
30	Iowa	$18,437	2,988,046	$6,170	$21,649	$7,245	$-1,075	Gore/Bush	Obama	Obama
31	Missouri	$48,568	5,878,415	$8,262	$55,564	$9,452	$-1,190	Bush	McCain	Romney
32	Wyoming	$4,725	522,830	$9,037	$5,355	$10,242	$-1,205	Bush	McCain	Romney
33	Idaho	$9,025	1,499,402	$6,019	$10,946	$7,300	$-1,281	Bush	McCain	Romney
34	Arizona	$35,485	6,338,755	$5,598	$48,012	$7,574	$-1,976	Bush	McCain	Romney
35	Louisiana	$33,677	4,293,204	$7,844	$43,036	$10,024	$-2,180	Bush	McCain	Romney
36	Vermont	$3,806	621,254	$6,126	$5,579	$8,980	$-2,854	Gore/Kerry	Obama	Obama
37	Maryland	$53,705	5,618,344	$9,559	$70,617	$12,569	$-3,010	Gore/Kerry	Obama	Obama
38	Kentucky	$23,151	4,241,474	$5,458	$35,927	$8,470	$-3,012	Bush	McCain	Romney
39	Puerto Rico	$3,549	3,941,459	$888	$16,798	$4,262	$-3,374	Non-voting	Non-voting	Non-voting
40	South Carolina	$20,499	4,407,709	$4,651	$37,056	$8,407	$-3,756	Bush	McCain	Romney
41	Montana	$4,523	957,861	$4,722	$8,497	$8,871	$-4,149	Bush	McCain	Romney
42	Maine	$6,289	1,317,207	$4,775	$11,850	$8,996	$-4,221	Gore/Kerry	Obama	Obama
43	South Dakota	$4,766	796,214	$5,985	$8,280	$10,399	$-4,414	Bush	McCain	Romney
44	North Dakota	$3,660	639,715	$5,721	$6,766	$10,577	$-4,856	Bush	McCain	Romney
45	Hawaii	$7,666	1,283,388	$5,974	$14,062	$10,957	$-4,983	Gore/Kerry	Obama	Obama
46	Alabama	$24,149	4,627,851	$5,218	$47,889	$10,348	$-5,130	Bush	McCain	Romney
47	West Virginia	$6,522	1,812,035	$3,599	$17,067	$9,419	$-5,820	Bush	McCain	Romney
48	Virginia	$61,990	7,712,091	$8,038	$110,105	$14,277	$-6,239	Bush	Obama	Obama
49	Mississippi	$10,869	2,918,785	$3,724	$30,616	$10,489	$-6,765	Bush	McCain	Romney
50	New Mexico	$8,346	1,969,915	$4,237	$22,418	$11,380	$-7,143	Gore/Bush	Obama	Obama
51	Alaska	$4,287	683,478	$6,273	$9,378	$13,721	$-7,448	Bush	McCain	Romney
52	District of Columbia	$20,394	588,292	$34,666	$43,475	$73,900	$-39,234	Gore/Kerry	Obama	Obama
	TOTAL	$2,674,008	305,562,616	$8,528	$2,556,213	$8,366	$162

Graphical representation of net contributions from states

Net Revenue Cartogram 2004

The cartogram above shows a map of the United States with the sizes of the states exaggerated or reduced to indicate relative sizes of their net contribution to (blue) or net receipts from (purple to red, where red is the most receipts per capita) the federal budget in 2004.

The biggest contributors and recipients are thus the biggest in the graphic, while those that are relatively neutral are smallest.

See also

• United States federal budget
• Demographics of the United States

US taxation:

• Taxation in the United States
• Sales taxes in the United States
• State income tax
• State tax levels

General:

• Red states and blue states

References

Main article:

• Leonard, Herman B. and Jay H. Walder. "The Federal Budget and the States: Fiscal Year 1999." 24th Ed. 15 Dec. 2000.
• http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/taubmancenter/publications/fisc/index.htm
• http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/topic/92.html
• Gladwell, Malcom. "U.S. to New York: It's Still Dutch Treat" Washington Post. Section A, 7 Mar 1996.
• Pear, Robert. "Federal Government Uses North's and Midwest's Dollars to Aid the South, Study Says" The New York Times. 8 Oct 1996.

Table:

• 2007 Population Estimate, US Census. http://www.census.gov/popest/data/historical/2000s/vintage_2007/index.html
• Total Tax Revenue By Type and State Fiscal Year 2007 http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/07db05co.xls (XLS)
• Consolidated Federal Funds Report http://www.census.gov//govs/cffr/index.html
• 2000 Election Results, Federal Election Commission http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/2000presgeresults.htm
• 2004 Election Results, Federal Election Commission http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2004/2004pres.pdf
• 2008 Election Results, Federal Election Commission http://www.fec.gov/pubrec/fe2008/2008pres.pdf
• America's Fiscal Union, The Economist http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/08/americas-fiscal-union
• Tax Foundation http://taxfoundation.org/blog/why-do-some-states-feast-federal-spending-not-others