Michigan actually pays less per capita in Federal tax than Virginia. As to the spending? 58% of Federal spending in Virginia goes to the salaries and offices of Washington bureaucrats on our side of the Potomac. Subtract that out, and US spending here amounts to $5300 per capita-
less than Michigan's $6000. And yet our p/c income is nearly $3000 higher, and our unemployment is *half* Michigan's.
The real winners in the Federal wealth-redistribution sweepstakes, the 'vampire states' as your AFL-CIO newsletter calls them, are the poorest states like Alabama and Mississippi. Well, duh! They get proportionately larger welfare payments. Conversely, our steeply progressive tax code, which I though liberals liked, guarantees that states with more rich people will pay more taxes per capita.
It actually appears we have a meeting of the minds, SF- if abolish welfare, fire 2/3 of Federal employees, and enact a flat tax, then all your spending inequities will disappear. I could sign on to that.
In reality, of course, the problem is pegged on the very same site you link to-
Michigan is driving employers out of the state with its
Single Business Tax and closed union shops. And Big Labor is desperately trying to point the finger at anyone, anything, other than itself to account for the job destruction unions have caused in the states they rule. Sorry, sf: it's not our fault Michigan has the highest unemployment in the nation after similarly union-dominated Rhode Island