MIchigan related: What can we do to stop being a tax donor state

[jt1]

As most people know, Michigan is still a donor state. For every dollar we send to Washington, we receive less than one dollar back. I believe there are only 13 donor states [[give or take a couple).

The historical data may be found here: http://www.taxfoundation.org/files/f...s-20071016.swf

My question: We obviously have weak leadership - How can we , as citizens have a voice to change this and get, at minimum, a $1 for $1 return on our money.

To put it in perspective: Between 1981 - 05 we sent $176,614,000,000 more to Washington than we received in return. Even to this day we are still a donor state.

How can we change this?

[ghettopalmetto]

In a nutshell, become Michissippi. Keep electing Republican leaders who will enact their tax-cutting, education-cutting, infrastructure-cutting, tax-giveaways-to enormous-corporations Race to the Bottom. You'll be there in no time at all.

[Detroitnerd]

I know it's illegal, but I keep coming back to secession.

[jt1]

In a nutshell, become Michissippi. Keep electing Republican leaders who will enact their tax-cutting, education-cutting, infrastructure-cutting, tax-giveaways-to enormous-corporations Race to the Bottom. You'll be there in no time at all.

Can you clarify?

[bailey]

In a nutshell, become Michissippi. Keep electing Republican leaders who will enact their tax-cutting, education-cutting, infrastructure-cutting, tax-giveaways-to enormous-corporations Race to the Bottom. You'll be there in no time at all.

I could have sworn that virtually every postion of influence for Michigan in Washington was held by a Democrat? In fact the whole...longevity brings power and influence clap trap I keep hearing should put people like Dingell, Levin and Conyers right at the front of the line. Even the congressmommy claims she is on the "powerful" committees because of her tenure.

but of course, it's Engler's fault. And Bush.

[ghettopalmetto]

Can you clarify?

Run Michigan like a Southern state. Don't spend money on education. Don't spend money on infrastructure. Cut taxes to the bone. Which necessitates cutting services to the bone. Any money you have left, use it to bribe global conglomerates to come to your state and hire people to work a skilled trade for 10 bucks an hour.

At the end of the program, Michigan will be so undereducated and poor, that it will become a "recipient" state by default.

[jt1]

Run Michigan like a Southern state. Don't spend money on education. Don't spend money on infrastructure. Cut taxes to the bone. Which necessitates cutting services to the bone. Any money you have left, use it to bribe global conglomerates to come to your state and hire people to work a skilled trade for 10 bucks an hour.

At the end of the program, Michigan will be so undereducated and poor, that it will become a "recipient" state by default.

Still need clarification on how this relates to the formula/decisions used by the government to quantify how much a state receives from the government. Facts are much better than generalizations.

[jt1]

For GP - The most recent data I found is either 2004 or 2005 but I will search later. Are you saying that your generalizations apply to states such as: Oregon, Maine, Vermont, Rhode Island, Maryland, Virginia, Ohio, Inidiana, Missouri and North Carolina fit your generalization. They all get a hell of a lot better return from Washington than the state of Michigan.

All of them except Oregon and Inidiana get more back from Washington than they send in [[and those two get damn near the amount they send to Washington)

[Novine]

"How can we change this?"

Change the Constitution so states like Alaska that have fewer people than the city of Detroit don't get equal representation in the Senate. Until that happens, places like Michigan are going to get the short end of the stick no matter who's in power.

[ghettopalmetto]

I guess I don't get it. JT1 is complaining that Michigan suffers because it sends more tax dollars to the federal government than it receives from the federal government. But look at the State of Michigan itself--how does it spend its own money? Endless freeway expansions that encourage middle-class flight onto formerly productive farmland. Tax giveaways to Hollywood studios. Charter school systems that require taxpayers to fund not one, but TWO public school systems, equally ineffective. Construction of redundant facilities, infrastructure and utilities in newly-constructed areas--in a state whose population growth is marginal, if not negative. And then while we're wasting the money we do have, let's just cut taxes on top of it.

Yeah. It's all Washington's fault.

[BrushStart]

"How can we change this?"

Change the Constitution so states like Alaska that have fewer people than the city of Detroit don't get equal representation in the Senate. Until that happens, places like Michigan are going to get the short end of the stick no matter who's in power.

Obviously, your suggestion is a double-edged sword.... Michigan does not have the highest population in the U.S.

[Mikeg]

What a bunch of mental midgets!

My guess is that almost everyone on this forum believes in the "fairness" of the progressive Federal tax system whereby the higher one's income, the higher the amount of taxes owed. Why is it then that you get so upset with the resulting statistics that show the states with the higher percentages of middle and upper middle class taxpayers are "donor states"?

Look deeper into that Tax Foundation study and you will see that of the 10 leading "donor states", all are in the top 17 of income states. Similarly, those states on the net return side of the equation typically have above average numbers of individuals receiving direct payments from the Federal Government, such as Social Security, Medicare, SSI disability and federal retirement pay.

Given the recent collapse of the domestic auto industry here in Michigan, we won't be a "donor state" for very much longer [[that Tax Foundation Study uses 2006 data). Our income levels are going down while were are getting older and trapped in our homes which we can't sell. But we will be able to proudly say that we are no longer a "donor state"!

I think you guys need to find some real problems to bitch about.

[MCP-001]

Study who is on the ballot.

Find the incumbents.

Vote them out.

[jbd441]

What a bunch of mental midgets!

My guess is that almost everyone on this forum believes in the "fairness" of the progressive Federal tax system whereby the higher one's income, the higher the amount of taxes owed. Why is it then that you get so upset with the resulting statistics that show the states with the higher percentages of middle and upper middle class taxpayers are "donor states"?

Look deeper into that Tax Foundation study and you will see that of the 10 leading "donor states", all are in the top 17 of income states. Similarly, those states on the net return side of the equation typically have above average numbers of individuals receiving direct payments from the Federal Government, such as Social Security, Medicare, SSI disability and federal retirement pay.

Given the recent collapse of the domestic auto industry here in Michigan, we won't be a "donor state" for very much longer [[that Tax Foundation Study uses 2006 data). Our income levels are going down while were are getting older and trapped in our homes which we can't sell. But we will be able to proudly say that we are no longer a "donor state"!

I think you guys need to find some real problems to bitch about.

I agree. Keep in mind the population shifts from colder to warm states of not only wealthy but middle class baby boomers who will collect SS, and qualify for medicad. The service and construction jobs will migrate with them.

[luckycar]

Carl the "comb -over" Levin.Always in your corner,always in your pocket.That fool is in over his head ,along with his his do-nothing brother.And I vote Demo,alot.Debbie,my husband likes his bjs in the suburbs,is another lost cause.Dingell,Mama sweet Cheeks,and least and last Mr Monica Conyers.What a bunch of do-nothings.Add up their senority,the the pull they have,and it will show why we donate.Sure when times were booming it was "ok" to send to our poor cousins.How about a little love for Michigan now that we are North Mississippi?Don't get me started.

[Trumpeteer]

Run Michigan like a Southern state. Don't spend money on education. Don't spend money on infrastructure. Cut taxes to the bone. Which necessitates cutting services to the bone. Any money you have left, use it to bribe global conglomerates to come to your state and hire people to work a skilled trade for 10 bucks an hour.

At the end of the program, Michigan will be so undereducated and poor, that it will become a "recipient" state by default.

Wow you're not really the sharpest tack here are you??

[mwilbert]

This really isn't very complicated. You become a donor state when your taxes paid are relatively high, and federal spending in your state is relatively low.

Taxes are basically related to income. Michigan used to be a high-income state. Now it is a medium-income state, and the level of its donations to the Federal till has decreased. This isn't such a good thing.

You get spending when you have things that the Federal government spends money on. Those are primarily Social Security, health care and defense. Not much defense spending left in Michigan--bases are closed, no ship or airplane building. Lots of older people leave and go south, taking their medical and SS spending with them. Michigan is too big and urban for things like farm subsidies and interior department projects to be significant. Too far away from DC to have a lot of federal offices.

So Michigan is a donor. If you don't want Michigan to be a donor, hope the state gets poorer and/or older. Or that somebody decides we need aircraft carriers in Lake Huron.

As an aside, there is a limit to what a congressional delegation can do. The biggest single construction project in US history [[by some measures) was the Big Dig in Boston, and with a united congressional delegation and the Speaker of the House, and Ted Kennedy, over about 15 years Massachusetts got roughly $10 billion from the Federal government for that project, a good chunk of which they would have gotten anyway as it was diverted from other transportation spending projects in Massachusetts. That is a lot of money, but it wouldn't make a big dent in the 175 billion excess of taxes vs spending mentioned in a previous post. A congressional delegation may be able to keep a military base open, or get some funding for a university, and that may be great, but it isn't likely to amount to much in the context of overall taxing and spending.

[Det_ard]

The larger the role of the federal government, the larger our donor state deficit for the reasons cited above. If we shift toward a smaller federal government and a more responsible state government, that donor state deficit decreases. Of course, that's crazy talk since that's what the Tea Party folks seem to be saying.

[Don K]

As mentioned earlier, a lot of the disparity is in military and retirement spending. And unless the military decides to open a lot of new bases or people suddenly decide they like snow as part of their retirement, there's not much that can be done about that. Much of the rest is in the formulas for distributing money such as highway and homeland security funds, which always favor the smaller states. This is where equal representation in the Senate comes into play, because the price for getting support for these programs from the Senators from, e.g., AK, AR, DE, HA, ID, IA, KS, ME, MS, MT, NE, NV, NH, NM, ND, OK, OR, RI, SC, SD, UT, VT, WV, is a disproportionate split of the funding. [[Note that the modern requirement for 60 votes in the Senate to do anything enters into this as well - the above states are sufficient to sustain a filibuster, and they're not all of the states with below-average populations). This is why counties with 20,000 residents in rural states were able to buy armored personnel carriers for their sheriffs with homeland security funds, while the real targets are someplace else.

Unless your Senator is chair of the Appropriations Committee [[Robert Byrd), there's a limited amount senators or representatives can do to direct spending to their state. High profile projects can be funded, as can earmarks, but these largely or completely come out of funds that would have gone to the state anyway.

[Hermod]

A more intellectually honest way of looking at the facts would have been to eliminate social security, spending on defense or other government installations, and federal employees from the numbers.

Maryland and Virginia are recipients states! Most of the DC area fed employees live in those states. Norfolk naval Base is in Virginia. DUHHHHH.

[bpaden2670]

It is up to our senators and representatives to bring back the money from Washington. Are Levin and Stabanow doing the job? The late Senator Robert Byrd is an example of the type of congressman who brought back the dollars.

[mwilbert]

Byrd was effective in getting some spending for West Virginia, but the main reason West Virginia is a recipient state is that it is one of the two or three poorest states in the US. Fortunately Michigan isn't close to that, at least not yet.

[Mikeg]

Are Levin and Stabanow doing the job? The late Senator Robert Byrd is an example of the type of congressman who brought back the dollars.

In 2005, the late, great, former Exalted Cyclops "brought back" $16.1 million in Federal Spending to his state, while our Senators "Combover" and "Dangerously Incompetent" brought back 4 times that amount!

But to answer your question, nowhere in their oath of office did they swear to "bring back the dollars", so this is an inappropriate measure of job performance.

[Patrick]

-Maryland and Virginia are recipients states! Most of the DC area fed employees live in those states. Norfolk naval Base is in Virginia. DUHHHHH.

Northern VA is one of the most, if not the wealthiest area of the country at the moment largely due to gov jobs. However, the rest of VA is still quite poor except for pockets here and there.

-Unless your Senator is chair of the Appropriations Committee [[Robert Byrd), there's a limited amount senators or representatives can do to direct spending to their state. High profile projects can be funded, as can earmarks, but these largely or completely come out of funds that would have gone to the state anyway.

Richard Shelby is the new earmark king now that Byrd is gone. Shelby steers all sorts of shit to Huntsville as well as various colleges down there. Damn near every school has a building named after him. Politico just did a pretty good write-up about that asshole and how he takes what he wants.

In the end, you have to figure in military spending. The warmer states have large amounts of DoD activity and it isn’t always because of the weather. If Levin really wanted to, he could send a LOT more DoD projects our way. Like I mentioned before, the Detroit area did luck out with BRAC not shutting Selfridge down and actually setting up a huge contracting mission at Tacom in Warren at the expense of Rock Island, IL.

[Hermod]

Northern VA is one of the most, if not the wealthiest area of the country at the moment largely due to gov jobs. However, the rest of VA is still quite poor except for pockets here and there.

Richard Shelby is the new earmark king now that Byrd is gone. Shelby steers all sorts of shit to Huntsville as well as various colleges down there. Damn near every school has a building named after him. Politico just did a pretty good write-up about that asshole and how he takes what he wants.

In the end, you have to figure in military spending. The warmer states have large amounts of DoD activity and it isn’t always because of the weather. If Levin really wanted to, he could send a LOT more DoD projects our way. Like I mentioned before, the Detroit area did luck out with BRAC not shutting Selfridge down and actually setting up a huge contracting mission at Tacom in Warren at the expense of Rock Island, IL.

1. Virginia is really quite wealthy. Most of the poverty is in the western tip. Norfolk and Richmond do quite well as does the Valley.

2. Considering that Shelby is in the minority party, he must be quite adept to be the new "king". Huntsville [[MICOM) and Warren [[TACOM) were Army choices for consolidating the R&D and logistics missions.

3. Maybe what we need is to raze Detroit and create a military base over the old city complete with tank and artillery ranges and field training areas. Turn a state and local revenue "black hole" into a federal revenue generator.