Who's on the take?

The map shows the difference between the amount the federal government spends in a state and the amount the state pays in federal taxes. Blue means a state receives more than it gives, orange the reverse. Source.

Perhaps the creators of this visual should have rendered the orange as blue and the blues as shades of red and pink. (Click to enlarge.) The result wouldn't be a perfect fit with our political divisions; New Mexico, Hawaii, Vermont and Oregon are reliably Democratic. Still the map correlates all too well with Republican states being takers while Dems pay the federal bills.

I was a little surprised to see Texas and Florida so far on the taker side. There's some correlation between the size/population of a place with being a taker; the little places take more from the whole. By those measures, those two might be expected to contribute more to national wellbeing than they give. But apparently not.

Economist Paul Krugman explains the obvious:

High productivity in California (and New York, also included) plays a significant role in making America richer; the nation excluding these powerhouses would have about 6 percent lower GDP per capita.

California makes an especially large contribution to U.S. technological dominance. As I noted a month ago, 8 of America’s top 9 technology companies — all of them if you count pre-Cybertruck Tesla — are based either in Silicon Valley or in Seattle.

And while Hollywood doesn’t dominate films and TV the way it once did, Los Angeles still plays a major role in America’s cultural influence (and still generates a lot of income.)

Republicans are balking at providing disaster assistance to Californians burned out by the wild fires ... because, you know, Gavin Newsom, and something or other ...

In an additional post, Krugman catalogues how the country has rescued Florida and Texas in recent decades. He concludes: 

All indications ... are that Republicans intend to exploit the tragedy in Los Angeles, and in general turn the federal government into an extortion racket. Let’s not pretend otherwise.