Roger says:
the lack of a state income tax is indeed a major reason for Tennessee’s relative economic strength. By the way, why is it that some of the most highly taxed states in the nation are the ones with their hands out? Check the lineup: New York, New Jersey, California…I don’t get it. They have “progressive” tax systems with income taxes. Everybody’s paying their “fair share.” Everything should be hunky-dory. What could possibly be the problem? More to the point, why is it supposedly somehow our (“our”= people who do live in those states) problem?
And I have just two points.
1. You’re lucky Rachel isn’t here, buddy, or I’d totally have her tracking down those studies that show that places like New York put more into the federal coffers than they take out, unlike us.
2. Relativel economic strength? Ha, ha, ha. Check this out. When you’re trying to build a hill “Our hole is smaller than yours” is kind of beside the point.
Tiny Cat Pants 
In 2007, New York sent $86.9 billion more to the federal government in taxes than it received in return. It’s been a “contributor state” since 1790.
That’s the study I was looking for! Where did you find it? I know the Kennedy school does it, but I couldn’t negotiate their site for crap.
Look at the Rockefeller Institute in NY. They have a host of info. Also Federation of Tax Administrators.
I’m glad bridgett is on it, because I’m on vacation and trying to look up as few citations as possible. :)
I found that in one of Gov. Paterson’s speech to the US Congress from November. However, if you’re looking for some national longitudinal data (up to 2005), you can find it here:
http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/topic/92.html
The governor of New York might not be the most unbiased source to find that sort of information from.
I can’t speak to overall federal funding, but when it comes to highway funds, NY has been taking money from TN since the 1950’s.
It’s been pretty well known in highway circles for a long time that most of the southern states were donor states. Around 2000 they changed the formulas for calculating how much each state gets, so things have been a lot more equitable since then.
If you go to the link below, it shows how many federal highway dollars each state has gotten and how much has been collected from each state. The important part are the last two columns which show a ratio of received versus collected. A ratio of one would mean that the state received exactly as much as they sent in. Less than 1 means it’s a donor state, and higher than 1 means they’re getting money from other states.
If you look at the cumulative ratio since 1956, Tennessee’s ratio is 0.98 and New York’s is 1.26. If you look at the ratio for fiscal year 2007 then both are above 1.0.
The worst culprits are the states that are physically large, but have small populations. Like Alaska, Montana, and the Dakotas.
Interestingly enough, every single one of the ratios was above 1 for 2007. So the highway fund is getting extra money from somewhere.
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2007/fe221.cfm
Why should NY complain if they are a “donor state?” Doesn’t that just show that they are paying their fair share? As individuals, nobody expects those that pay the most in taxes to receive the most in government spending right? Its all just part of paying your fair share.
NY isn’t complaining about it; never has. NY just complains about being considered un-American by people in other states who take all that money, is all.