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I don't see why I should have to pay higher taxes to fund someone's else's Manhattan lifestyle.

You're not. Trust me.

The median household income in New York City in 2007 was $48,631, which is about $2,000 above the national median, and well below the median for New York State ($53,514), or any other statewide median in the Northeast US. There are a small number of fantastically wealthy individuals living on Manhattan, although this is a gross misrepresentation of the demographics of the city as a whole.

Most of the city's less affluent residents live in outlying areas such as Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx, and Harlem. These areas have been hit the hardest by utility failures, and are usually the first to suffer whenever the public transportation budget gets cut. (Less than 20% of the city's residents live within Manhattan)

Manhattan's hasn't had any prolonged outages such as the one in Queens in 2006 -- Manhattan's electrical infrastructure seems to have held up decently.

Additionally, the New York Metro area receives an exceptionally poor return on its tax federal dollars -- $0.82 to the dollar. Across the river, New Jersey receives a paltry $0.65/$1. It is not without a touch of irony that "red" states generally receive an exceptionally high return on their tax dollars.

I should probably also mention that New York City is very poorly represented by its state government, due to a fairly wide demographic and cultural gap. Ideally, to provide the best representation, one would rearrange borders to create three new states: Upstate NY and PA; NYC, Long Island, and North Jersey; Philiadelphia and South Jersey. There is an active secessionist movement within NYC that has the support of many NYC politicians. According to mayor Michael Bloomberg, NYC pays $11 billion more to the state than it receives back.

That's all correct.

However, California and other states acted like the boom times would never end, and budgeted accordingly. Now that revenues have fallen to more realistic levels, they can't afford boom time spending. Instead of accepting this fact, they're trying to increase revenue.

It's a spending problem, not a revenue problem.

I'd say it is primarily a projection/estimation problem. If a state were able to say on October 1st (or whatever day they start their fiscal year), we have X dollars to spend this year and divide that up among their budget needs, then we would have a much better budget system. Instead they have to say, we think we will have X dollars in 2 years and then divide that up among their future budget estimates. Then when they have less than X dollars in 2 years they have to fight over budget shortfall issues.

It wasn't a spending problem until the revenue estimations were incorrect. You could argue that states collect and control too much revenue, but that is an entirely different argument.

Never mind that many states, California included, pay more to the federal government than they receive in benefits, while other states receive more than they pay. The Fed has too much power via the purse strings and the South has been living off the riches of the rest of the country for far too long... http://www.nemw.org/taxburd.htm

You shouldn't have to bet.... California's disproportionate federal tax burden and return on tax dollar are a hard, well-documented facts.

In 2002, Moody reports, the per capita federal tax burden in California was $7,313-or 116% of the national average. On the other hand, per capita federal spending in the state was only $5,592-or 88% of the national average. For every dollar California sent in taxes to Washington, D.C., it received only 76 cents in return.
Source: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3827/is_200308/ai_n9240268

But once again, the GP is a smug, self-righteous ass who feels that he's been somehow wronged and that he is being forced to support CA. Of course, he probably doesn't realize that CA has been supporting many of the smaller states in hard-working "real" America for a very long time. Nor does he realize that much of the mess that we're currently in was created by the policies he likely supports.

Back on topic: I like black cars. This CARB policy is stupid, and I don't think the general populace will allow it.

An intelligent person would provide a link to their source.

Here is a nice chart.

The third column, Ranking of Return on Tax Dollar, shows how much each state receives in return for each dollar given to the federal government. Quick summary: 8 of the top 10 and 15 of the top 20 voted Republican in 2008. So, while the OP was a little caustic, his claim is mostly accurate.

Texas is, though, barely on the net givers side of the equation. It receives $.97 for every $1.00 it gives.

FY2005 is the most recent I found on a quick search.

My guess is most of the uneducated, barely literate people are voting for Obama.

You're wrong. She's running for VP! (cue snare and cymbals)

It is easy to vote for someone who promises to steal from others to give you stuff you didn't earn for yourself.

Who wouldn't agree that actively taking by force from one group of people and giving it to another group is stealing? Except that's not his plan at all. You're intentionally misrepresenting it and hoping people will follow the rest of your logic without questioning that premise.

Yes, INCOME REDISTRIBUTION is STEALING, and not a "Right". Taking from someone else, under threat, is evil, and that is something that Obama and McCain both don't understand.

And why I'm voting libertarian.

I voted libertarian the last few times, and I am still registered as one. I'd love to see the federal government get its fingers out of the majority of crap they're involved in. Until that happens, we have to accept that income tax is a reality. So, no matter what, the government is "stealing" from some and "giving" to others. Right now the government "steals" from blue states and gives to red states. As long as you have a federal government taxing and spending you will have some redistribution of wealth.

The problem is that over the last eight years we really have seen an incredible redistribution of wealth orchestrated by the legislative and executive. We have seen remarkable tax cuts for the wealthy, a reimplementation of anti-labor laws, and a return to economic policies reminiscent of the gilded age. The middle class is drowning under a sea of debt and now makes less real money than they did in the 1970's.

Obama's plan is to return to a more progressive tax system that will give some relief to the middle class. The idea is that a healthier middle class will be able to make and spend more money and that the elite (top 0.1%) class will still continue to acquire wealth. Frankly, it's demonstrably better than the repeated, abysmal failure that we call "trickle down".

If California wasn't subsidizing the unsuccessful economies of those rust-belt states ...

Which rust belt state would you be referring to? New Mexico? Alaska? http://www.nemw.org/taxburd.htm

It would be more proper to call them less urban states with large areas of agriculture. Vermont, Maine, West Virginia and Mississippi are the only states with larger rural than urban populations:

http://www.nemw.org/poprural.htm

There are several others that are close (and thus are 'even less urban' than the rest of the merely less urban states, but they are still more urban than rural).

Note that just over 1% of the country is classified as farm population.

APF has nothing to do with Stevens, sure. But you don't pay taxes, you get about $1000 each year form the state. So us in the lower 48 figure you have enough money to fund your own projects.

Meanwhile, for each dollar you send to the federal government, you get about $1.80 back from them. Instead of taking money from the federal government (ie: us in the lower 48), just stop taking the $1k a year and put it into bridges and so forth.

here's my source, btw: http://www.nemw.org/fundsrank.htm
I'm from Jersey. look at the bottom of the right column. We get back on $0.63 on each dollar we send to the federal government.

Why shouldn't Alaskan money go to Alaska, and Hawaiian money go to Hawaii? Why send it through more bureaucracy? From what I understand, Alaska doesn't even collect state income taxes. Maybe they don't need to, since the federal government pays for all their stuff?

And I'm from New Jersey. For every $1 we send to the government, we get about $0.63 back. We get the least back from the federal government of all the states. Alaska is on the other end of the scale, getting back about $1.80 for each dollar they send to the federal government (they are #2, right behind New Mexico's $1.91 return on their dollar). So, on the whole money is flowing from my state, to Alaska.

Hawaii isn't quite as bad as NM or Alaska, but they are #7, getting back $1.54 for each dollar they send to the feds.

Here's my source: http://www.nemw.org/fundsrank.htm

You could calculate it in a bunch of different ways, but the numbers are so far apart that I doubt you could massage them into saying that I'm not getting the short end of the stick when it comes to federal funds.

The kids here don't have a sense of entitlement, and don't feel like everything is somebody else's fault. The adults think the same way.

Well, they talk a good story, but for the most part they're a bunch of fucking leeches. whose entire lifestyles are entirely due to their sense of entitlement to *my* wallet.

No wonder they're so fucked up when they're living in that deep of a delusion.

You didn't move to America. You moved to Leechland.

And then there is the midwest that pays for the reconstruction but is anyone paying for Stoughton WI
http://www.madison.com/archives/read.php?ref=tct:2 005:08:30:488032:METRO
Damn why do I have to live In a state that gets $.86 for ever dollar in federal taxes
http://www.nemw.org/fundsrank.htm
But we know the feds have the Midwest's interests in mind when Disney World has a no fly zone but Chicago doesn't.

builds his house outside the city limits to avoid paying property tax

And still has to pay for the school district his property is undoubtedly within, and doesn't receive city services like police or fire protection. Sounds fair to me.

He buys his expensive cars and such across state lines so he doesn't pay sales tax.

This doesn't work-- I really wish it did. But almost all states have use tax tied to car registration. And if you try to avoid taxes this way, you can go to jail (witness the problems Kozlowski of Tyco is experiencing).

So, no, I don't believe that the lower 50% of taxpayers pay under 4% of all income tax.

Well, the Congressional Budget Office as cited by the National Taxpayers Union thinks so. Sure, if you count state and local taxes, in addition to the income tax and FICA, you'll come up with a little more than 4%.

But to take an example, my state (California) has a really high tax burden, at $3676 per capita. California residents pay $7286 per capita in income tax. Even if all of the state tax was equally divided over all California citizens, the lower 50% of wage earners would pay 19.4% of the combined state and federal tax burden. And of course, most of this money is raised in a highly-progressive income tax (even more so than the federal income tax), rich people tend to pay more per capita in property tax because they tend to have more property.. and they tend to buy more stuff to pay sales tax on, etc etc etc.

Sources:

Federal tax burden and expenditures by state
Tax Foundation's sunmmary of California tax burden

If you want to be involved in stuff like this, you might want to move out of the 3rd least-populated state (by density) in the country.

To illustrate the difference between the proportional weight of rural voters and urban voters, it may help to look at this map showing net return on the Federal dollar per state. (similar data in tabular form is here. A state that gets as much Federal spending as it sends to the Federal government has a ratio of 1.0; the states that get more than they contribute include New Mexico ($2.07 in Federal spending for every Federal tax dollar) and Montana (1.62 ratio) and states that get less than they spend include California and New York ($.87 spending per dollar) and Connecticut has the lowest ratio at .63

There is similar textual data at this link, which compares the 1990 data to the 2000 data.

To illustrate the difference between the proportional weight of rural voters and urban voters, it may help to look at this map showing net return on the Federal dollar per state. (similar data in tabular form is here. A state that gets as much Federal spending as it sends to the Federal government has a ratio of 1.0; the states that get more than they contribute include New Mexico ($2.07 in Federal spending for every Federal tax dollar) and Montana (1.62 ratio) and states that get less than they spend include California and New York ($.87 spending per dollar) and Connecticut has the lowest ratio at .63

There is similar textual data at this link, which compares the 1990 data to the 2000 data.

New Jersey's gasoline tax is 14.5 cents/gallon. That's on the low side (and according to this makes it the fourth lowest in the nation.

Keep in mind however that a lot of New Jersey's roadways are financed through tolls--whereas most states finance highways through gasoline taxes.

Now let us take a look at this which is a summary of gasoline price per gallon in summer 01 and summer 02. The average price per gallon in New Jersey is quite a lot higher than most states (except those which are far from refineries, like your Wyoming and Alaska or require a different fuel mix, like California, which is also far from refineries.) Indeed, Connecticut asseses a tax which is some 20 cents higher than New Jersey's tax, but the cost in CT for a gallon of gas is about the same as it is in NJ. Delaware's tax is nearly ten cents higher than NJ's, but most of the time you'll get gas there for about ten cents cheaper. I use CT and DE as states to compare to because they are close by, often with similar population densities. NY would make a bad comparison because a lot of NY is not the NYC metro area, which I suspect has a bit of a inflation effect on gas prices for the tri-state area.)

My hypothesis is that since all stations in NJ have to pump gas for you, the price for that service is rolled into the cost of the gasoline, and the statistics do seem to indicate that gas in NJ, given it's pretty low sales tax, is more expensive than it is in other states.

Having said all that, I think I would be a little sad if NJ got rid of full service--it's one of those unique things that make NJ what it is. Like the Sopranos, non-photo driver licenses (which they are sadly getting rid of) and...umm...damn. I guess that's it.

$120K a year now and taking home like $6,500 a month...Its rough.

Are you that out of touch with "the grim meathook reality?"
Understand that the average household income in this country was $42,148 (2000).
In North Carolina it was $37,057 (1997 - 1999 avg).
You're doing just fine. It could be much worse