Paul Krugman inferred, in a piece published several weeks ago in The Tribune, that big metropolitan areas often vote Democratic because their residents are more highly educated and enlightened. I responded, respectfully suggesting that another reason many of the large metropolitan areas voted “blue” was more residents of those cities use and desire to continue to receive federal social assistance.
In response, it was pointed out that large cities and predominantly Democratic states receive less federal tax dollars back for use in their state budgets than states that are predominantly Republican. It was stated that my analysis promoted a false narrative.
With some research, one can find the National Association of State Budget Officers has published data on every state budget: incomes and expenditures. The California budget for 2016 was $266 billion. Of that, $96 billion came back to the state from federal sources, which is about 36%. Of their total budget, 28% was spent on education and 38% was spent on social programs made up of Medicaid and public assistance. Montana, in comparison, received 37% of their budget from federal monies, spent 26% on education and 18.5% on social programs.
There are surely people who feel that paying taxes to be used for support of our poor and downtrodden people is appropriate and even admirable. Those who voluntarily want to increase and pay taxes to help our lower social class population are engaged in a worthy cause. Mandated taxation is not the same thing. I have reservations as to the real benefit these social programs have in the long run. It’s a critical societal issue as to how best we can help our fellow human beings.
Steven Dewey, Woodland Hills