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I just filled up yesterday, $2.43/gal Toledo, Ohio...

I could of used my "Kroger" card (Grocery Store that offers "Fuel Perks") and got $.20/gal off!
(I forgot I had it still to use... DAH!)

But, before we start a gas price thread, just remember how much of that is Federal and State taxes.

For Ohio, out of the $2.439/gal, $0.464/gal is taxes. So REAL gas is $1.975/Gal
Of that $0.464, 0.28/gal is STATE tax, and $0.184/gal is federal taxes

California is $0.650 total tax for the state, so if federal is $0.184/gal, then
you state of California is getting $0.466/gal taxes... Your in the red on the following map:

State gas/gal Tax map:

http://www.api.org/statistics/fueltaxes/upload/GASOLINE_TAX_MAP_JAN2010.pdf

Some more fun state tax info... I like the per gallon of beer tax breakout... :(

http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/245.html

" and they took twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy photographs with circles
and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each
one was to be used as evidence against us."

The ironic end game though is that you'll see southern states waiving environmental, wage, and other regulations to get aerospace jobs, while the liberal north languishes, as usual, and so, when the south does "rise again", the Confederate Army will be in the position of having the spaceships while the North will be cut off and begging for some foreign powers to help it.

That's why the South and their conservative Republican anti-government politicians, get $1.50 to $2.00 back from the federal government for every tax dollar collected.

We have a word for this in the North, it's "welfare." Your state would fall apart without us, and our "big government."

On behalf of all of us Northerns:

You're welcome.

It also has the highest income taxes and state taxes.

According to the anti-tax folks over at the Tax Foundation (who might be biased, but I don't think they have a particular reason to be on the subject of rankings), California actually ranks 5th in income tax, collecting $1,465 per person. The highest is Connecticut's $1,811 (New York, Massachusetts, and Oregon are the three other higher-taxing states). It ranks even lower in tax rates--- it makes it up to 5th place mostly because of its high per-capita income, rather than because of particularly high rates.

Taxes would go up - significantly - for 95% of the population. Currently, the top 1% of taxpayers pay 40% of the taxes - more than the bottom 95%. Presumably because they can afford it.

If you move to a flat tax and want to keep the same taxes coming in, nearly every single taxpayer would need to pay double or triple their current tax rate.

Um, no.

In 2007, the top 1 percent of tax returns paid 40.4 percent of all federal individual income taxes and earned 22.8 percent of adjusted gross income.

Your example is obviously flawed - libraries do not cost each person $1000 a month in taxes, besides the fact that it would be pretty difficult to eat $1000 worth of sweets in a month (by yourself), meaning the value proposition is so low that no one would take up that offer.

It's not really necessary and I doubt anyone will even read my post, but I've always wanted to do a slashdot style back-of-the-envelope calculation... so here goes.

Let's assume the previous post was correct, and libraries cost $1.1 billion a year. To keep it simple I'll use state taxes only, which is listed as $895 million. Wikipedia says total state tax revenue (in 2007) was $749,785,186,000 ($750 billion). So, 0.001% of state tax revenue was spent on libraries. Very likely there are local/city taxes that could be significant, but the previous poster showed that states provide the largest source of library funding.

In 2005, at $38,206 per capita the average state tax rate was 9.8% (source). So, about $3,750 in taxes was paid per person, on average, to the state(s) where they did business (these numbers include taxes from states besides those the person resides in, such as sales tax on out-of-state purchases, but doesn't include federal taxes). 0.001% of that is 4 cents, and that's for the whole year... 0.3 cents/month.

Let's assume my math and the figures I used are bad, and it's actually significantly higher. Say, one hundred times higher... $4 a year is still a heck of a good deal for everything that libraries provide to those who use them, and if you never ever use the library, you can write off the expense (pun intended), considering how small it is, as part of "buying civilization" as the well-known slashdot sig goes, just like you probably don't directly use a lot of the other things state, local, and federal taxes pay for (and you don't get to pick and choose what your money goes toward).

Your sweets example is obviously different, because sweets can't be almost endlessly re-used like books and DVDs from the library can (I suppose you could try with sweets, but...) That's why, of course, such a pre-payment scheme as you suggest wouldn't work for food (although all-you-can-eat buffets are an interesting thing to consider), but why the original point stands... you are pre-paying for the library, but it's a minuscule amount that more or less equals nothing, especially when compared to the value it potentially provides to you.

this was my source for 40%: http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html Even if your unmentioned source is correct, they are still paying a higher percentage than average. The poster I replied to implied it was some kind of crime to only pay more than their share. Taxes by wealth are difficult to correlate (because we don't have a wealth tax)(yet).

LOL WUT?

California can't stop this as the Federal government decides to redistribute their wealth to the fly-over areas. Cali only has their reps in the legislature to fight that.

Are you so ignorant that you deny the fact that this wealth redistribution really is happening? Here's a nice conservative-biased site that supports my assertation:

http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/266.html

BTW, cool argument bro! But you might want to hang arround the debate club a bit longer before you bring your skills to bear upon Slashdot.

Maybe California should stop supporting us dumb hicks so they can dig themselves out of debt. Are you really so stupid that you blame the "heartland" for the economic incompetence of the coastal states? So much for your facts.

Maybe they should, it sure would be fun to watch the heartland dry up and blow away without the massive taxpayer subsidies for farming and ethanol. The heartland states are goddamned worthless shitholes full of lazy, stupid, incompetent welfare queens who would die if it weren't for massive transfers of federal tax dollars from better states full of smarter people, like Washington, California, New York, New Jersey, etc.

What's even worse is that the WATB (whiny ass titty babies) in these states are completely clueless as to how completely and totally worthless they really are. Go look at the Tax Foundation's table of Federal Taxes Paid vs. Federal Spending Received by State to see just how useless, lazy and good for nothing most of the red states are. Or you could Google the phrase "Red State Socialism" to find out how lazy and worthless most of the red states are.

Hell, look at Alaska, the home of Sarah Palin, Alaska receives $1.84 in federal spending for every dollar in federal taxes they pay, and everyone in Alaska gets a 1,500 dollar welfare check from the Alaska Permanent Fund for being a lazy fuck who couldn't hack it down in the lower 48. But these are the states that are constantly bitching about how hard they work and how much they're paying in taxes, all while they suck on the federal tit.

The way the state and feds are increasingly taxing the hell out of the citizens of the US,

This sounds great and all, but in the real world taxes in the US are nearly at an 80 year low. It's not because of excessively high taxes that you feel a pinch in your wallet, even if it's popular to say so. http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/151.html

1) Using http://www.cagw.org/site/PageServer?pagename=reports_pigbook2008porkpercap as a source, an anti-spending organisation that most would consider right-wing as a source, some quick math (email me and I'd be glad to send you, otherwise, import it into excel...): The average pork per capita is $46.30 in states won by Obama, and $88 in states won by McCain. That's a 90% difference.

2) Of course, pork spending is a miniscule portion of the federal budget. Let's look at overall federal spending: The Tax Foundation, another anti-tax group, has data at http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/266.html . Plugging this into excel and comparing with election08 data (Feel free to email me asking for the data if you don't trust me), the average Blue state gets $0.96 in spending for every dollar it pays in taxes. The average Red state receives $1.40 in spending for every dollar in taxes it pays.

These figures include essentially all types of federal spending: Defence, Welfare, Medicaid, etc. You can read more about the methodology at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_spending_and_taxation_across_states.

If anything, it seems like it's the Republican politicians are "better at siphoning the federal pork." !

Per person?

Per person, things are pretty much the same. Weighing population, you get that Blue states receive 96 cents in spending for every dollar they pay in taxes, while Red states receive $1.27 in spending for every dollar they pay in taxes.

enough, you can come to rather dire conclusions just about anything you (pre)set your mind to.

Not in this case. Under pretty much every conceivable metric, Blue states perform better then Red States. This is, at heart, because Blue states have lots of cities, while Red states tend to be rural. Cities are much richer then rural areas, and money tends to fix social and economic problems. There's a good argument to be made that this has nothing to do with governance, but the data is what it is.

As for your claim that Democrats benefit from having republican predecessors: There is a good deal of evidence that vote margins can be very accurately predicted on the basis of economic performance (See the "Bread and Peace" model published by Hibbs(2005)). If Democrats gain power from Republicans, this implies that the Republicans must have done very badly. Since there are more Democrats then Republicans at every level of government right now, this creates a strong theoretical reason to believe that Republicans do not perform better then Democrats. Because of this strong theoretical basis, the burden of proof is on you to prove otherwise, preferably with a lot of data.

"Even a 60% crop wouldn't cause a famine in Florida... As for your being part of a large country, that's irrelevant, because you didn't get food as charity from the government — you paid for (most) it, with industrious, profit-driven capitalists in a hurry to deliver supplies in exchange for money. If Nicaragua had any of that (instead of living harvest-to-harvest) — they would've been able to absorb an occasional hurricane too."

Having lived through a bunch of Hurricanes, I'd say that without the massive federal assistance Florida gets after a bad Hurricane, famine-like conditions would be a strong possibility. It's hard for "industrious profit driven capitalists" to get food when they can't leave their houses without being electrocuted to death by downed power-lines.

All of these things require lots of money, and you're right, if Nicaragua was richer, there wouldn't be any problems. But Nicaragua's GDP is higher right now then it was a couple years ago when they w

You should really dig up that citation, because none of what you said is true.

Most of that map that was red were large rural areas without many voters.

here's a breakdown of federal aid by state - the top 8 are all red states, the bottom 15 are blue (16 counting DC).

here is the median income by state. The 17 lowest are red states, the 9 highest are blue states (with the exception of alaska at #6)

here are crime rates. It's generally a mixed bag, the 5 lowest are: Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, N. Dakota, and S. Dakota, the 5 highest are: South Carolina, Tennessee, Nevada, Louisiana, and Florida. (DC is the highest).

Detroit, and Michigan in general are certainly in a bad way, but Georgia and the Carolinas aren't far behind. Crime has dropped dramatically in major cities over the past 15 years, especially in New York. Today we're worried about meth in the boonies.

States don't go to the Federal government for money -- they administer some programs on behalf of the Federal government

Let me introduce you to block grants. Sayeth the wik, "Since the 1980s, the United States government has provided large sums of money through block grants, under a policy that has come to be known as 'devolutionary' or 'new federalism.'"

These days, smaller, more rural states tend to get screwed, as the large states have more recipients for high-dollar programs like Medicare & Medicaid.

Nope. Rural states have plenty of poor people receiving federal benefits, plus of course there are all those farm subsidies. Most "blue states" pay more in taxes then they receive in federal spending. It's the smaller, more rural states -- the "red states" -- that generally take more then they give. There are exceptions: D.C. and Maryland are quite "blue", but with the federal government right there of course a lot of federal spending happens. Still, the correlation is strong.

Now we're paying far more in taxes than we ever have

No, we are not, not in constant dollars per capita. I suggest you stop getting your tax information from the teabaggers.

Federal income tax burden is near its lowest level in three decades: the average American family pays about 9% of its income in income taxes. The peak was 12% in 1981. Meanwhile state and local tax burden per capita hasn't changed much, and is now slightly lower then its peak.

And Americans are, compared to almost every other industrialized nation, under-taxed. The only countries with comparable standards of living with lower tax burdens are Japan and Switzerland. (Nations with low defense spending that don't try to run empires...)

and we're trillions of dollars in debt.

Because conservatives have created the myth that taxes are too high, and so we cut taxes on the aristocracy -- shifting the burden to those who work for a living. Restore those taxes, end the pointless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we can start climbing out of the hole that decades of Republican borrow-and-spend policies have given us.

Too bad they make more than 85% of the money, meaning they still don't even pay their fair share.

"In 2006, the top 1 percent of tax returns paid 39.9 percent of all federal individual income taxes and earned 22.1 percent of adjusted gross income..."

Why would you think flames targeted at you would imply you were anti-American? You aren't saying anything new or controversial. States' rights and a limited Fed are a key plank in the Republican platform.

But the thing is, there are a number of reasonable people who disagree with you. They are commonly known as 'Democrats' and are currently in control of two of the three branches of government. How do you feel about desegregation? Never would have happened with stronger states' rights. The government of the southern states knew their constituency very well. They knew they hated black people and wanted 'separate but equal' to continue. Was it wrong or right of the Federal government to override them?

There are some parts of the country, where if it were put to a popular vote, lynching of blacks and beating of homosexuals would be perfectly legal.

You say the two major parties have a stranglehold on politics, but your answer is to enact the platform of one of those parties.

The funny thing is, the Republican dominated states almost always get more federal funding than they pay in taxes. It is the big, wealthy, liberal states that pay for it. For instance, California gets around 80 cents back for every dollar they pay in taxes, while Mississippi gets more than two dollars for ever dollar it pays in Federal taxes. In this defederalized world you crave, many states would be left bankrupt while the liberal states like California and New York would be rolling in money.

You may want to go here and take a look to see if your state is getting more than it pays in taxes. If so, contemplate what your state would look like without all that Federal money propping it up. If the citizens in your state aren't educated enough to compete in the modern marketplace, they mat be in for a very rude shock when they get rid of that Federal pork. They may have to face the fact that it is the rich, liberal, intelligent, successful states that are keeping them out of abject, third world poverty .

On the other hand, if you are from one of the rich, successful states that have been propping up the rest of the country with our tax dollars, downsizing the Federal government could save you billions. Of course, all of the poor, uneducated citizens of the unsuccessful states will then attempt to move to the liberal states, screwing up their economy and leaving states like Mississippi, Alabama, and Kentucky barren, desolated wastelands with no government or infrastructure.

linky
top 10 net recipients of federal tax money (dollars received per dollars contributed):

New Mexico $2.03
Mississippi $2.02
Alaska $1.84
Louisiana $1.78
West Virginia $1.76
North Dakota $1.68
Alabama $1.66
South Dakota $1.53
Kentucky $1.51
Virginia $1.51

The only southern states that contribute more than they recieve are Texas and Florida, at 94 and 97 cents on the dollar respectively. What this really means is that southern states are poorer than Northern States, which we've known since before there were two Carolinas... It also means that if rational self interest guided one's politics southerners would be screaming for higher federal tax rates - unfortunately that all ended with the civil rights movement and Nixon's southern strategy.

...because his government isn't representing him, it's representing the people in the states that take in more tax money than they pay.

Tax distribution is a zero-sum game. That has nothing to do with the size of the government. The same size government that takes money from California gives money to Louisiana.

I feel that interesting comparisons could probably be made between the list of states according to their representation levels (click the button to sort by pop per House seat) and the list of states according to their taxes paid/received ratios, but eh, I'm not that interested in bothering. Suffice it to say none of the ten best-represented states get less than $1 received on the dollar paid.

The blue states also generate FAR more federal money, so it tends to even out. Typically the citation is this study posted by the Tax Foundation. It is old, however (2005).

These states, full of right-wingers who decry 'wealth redistribution' rely on Federal Tax Money to exist. My state of CT gives alot in taxes, but the Fed only spends 60 cents on the dollar on us! Compare to the 'Red States' who receive far more Federal Tax Money then they contribute. See: http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/266.html

Location of the Pres is one thing, but over the last several decades, it has been the Red States that mooch off of the Blue States while their residents bitch about taxes. At least the Red States are the ones that provide cannon fodder for wars of choice, but that's a different discussion.

At least 32 of the states did, circa 2005: http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/266.html

http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/2181.html

It's a year newer (2009) and has a lot more interesting information. Including the fact that most of the high income states are in the northeast. Except for Wyoming.

Don't kid yourself -- they're not looking to build a bullet train, they're looking for another handout.

California pays more in federal taxes then it received in services every year. According to the Tax Foundation (http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/22685.html, page 5) in 2005 California received $0.78 from the federal government for every dollar paid. In 2005 (the most recent report) they were 43rd among states for money received. Saying they are looking for another handout is a bit of a stretch.

as the American Left is so fond of reminding the Internet, California is the third largest economy in the world

Well, seventh, but don't let real numbers stop you (why start now?): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_between_U.S._states_and_countries_nominal_GDP#2008

so why is it that the "liberal" state of California can't provide their own state run healthcare to their own citizens?

1. As you so unintentionally point out with your scare quotes, California's conservative policies include such idiocy as Prop 13 and the two-thirds supermajority requirement for approval of taxes or a yearly budget. Hand-tying obstructionist crap like this regularly screws us over, thanks very much to asinine Republicans.
2. Perhaps it has something also to do with the fact that for each dollar we pay out to the red states, we get back only 79 cents. http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/show/1397.html

I hope the "we" you are talking about isn't the US. We actually have one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world.

Perhaps Google would have helped you a little.

I hope the "we" you are talking about isn't the US. We actually have one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world.

Perhaps Google would have helped you a little.

Ummm.... what about the second highest corporate tax rate in the world ? It sits at about 39%. I think that just might have something to do with wanting to leave.

Corporate taxes are a joke. They just get passed on to the consumer anyway, and they make businesses less competitive internationally. But it is politically rewarding to go after the big evil corporations and for them to pay their way.

Really, and end to corporate taxes is a big reason why I strongly support the FairTax . It would no longer hide the taxes we pay, and special interests would not be able to carve out exceptions for themselves life they do all the time now.

Why leave off California? Anyway, I think a more valid comparison would be total dollar spent (see here -- the ranking is pretty much the same) rather than just the largest projects this year. Also, what you really should be doing is looking at net Federal expenditures per state, i.e. the difference between the Federal taxes paid and the Federal grants received. That would tell you whether Minnesota is actually subsidizing New York. The site in question doesn't cover that issue, but here's a pdf from The Tax Foundation that does. Look over the data yourself, but it looks to me like New York is subsidizing everyone else.

All these companies wouldn't be outsourcing if the US didn't have some of the highest corporate tax rates in the world, driving many companies to Ireland which has one of if not the lowest.

Because we want other states to subsidize us for a change.

This article is about the 15 but in reality, many Americans are closer to 20%+ in taxes on telecommunications services with some being over 30%.

After a few years, phase out the fee (hum...).

I present to you the Federal Telephone Excise Tax. Once a tax or fee is on the books it will be next to impossible to remove it - it will just be repurposed. What really grinds my gears is the Cost Recovery Fee charged each month to support the number portability act. That was is, what, 2004? Let's do the math: 5 years * 100 million cell phone subscribers * 12 months in a year * $1.25 per month = $7.5 billion in cost recovery monies. You really think it cost the cell phone industry that much money to support number portability? My professional wild assed guess is that it cost the industry 1 billion to implement and maybe 1 million a year to maintain/support. The rest of that is pure profit; pure profit I don't see going away any time soon. Now, if the government mandated they use that money to forcibly upgrade their network.

Actually, here's a site that appears to refute the first point as well.

Their source is the IRS.

According to http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/23408.html, the rich do pay a higher percent income tax. This only covers income tax paid vs. AGI, so there can be arguments about other taxes being regressive or sources of income that aren't taxable (or aren't reported). But from the standpoint of income tax this is a reasonable metric. For 2006, the top 1% paid an average of 22.79% of their AGI in tax. The people in the top 5%-2% averaged 17.48%. The top 10%-6% paid 12.60%. One could argue that the rich should pay even more, but claiming that they pay a lower effective rate of income tax than everyone else is just not supported by the facts.

Take a look at some actual numbers: http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html . Notice the bottom 50% of taxpayers by income are paying an average of 3%. You're asking them to increase their tax burden by 17% of their income. Now look at the top 1%, the people making more than $388,806 a year. You're their new best friend.

Whose side are _you_ on?

Not to mention, you're completely off topic. The article in question relates to corporate taxes, not individual income taxes.

The problem is, the market does lead to consolidated ownership, in a mature market. That's how that works - the example you give with the phone company - the monopoly was not given to the phone company,

Governments did give phone companies monopolies. They basically said they'll give the companies exclusive rights to the rights of ways if they offered phone service. Even then the government paid for the infrastructure to be built. The universal service program was a tax on phone bills that paid for phone service in sparsely populated areas.

It works like this:

1. Government investment in research/technology/science leads to new opportunity. The internet and computer industries were both born this way.

And neither the internet nor computer industries are monopolies.

The resurgence of the American car industry after WWII was largely a result of this kind of thing too - and the airline industry.

Here I agree. During the war automakers geared up to produce vehicles for the war, then once the war ended they were able to convert to making autos for civilian use. And because the original GI Bill funded the education for returning military personnel the auto makers had people who could afford to buy cars.

3. Industry matures, when one or a few players dominate the market, and things break down (higher prices, falling quality). At this point, there tends to need to be some government intervention

Except it's usually the industries being regulated who want the regulations. Regulations make it harder for competitors to start. A good example today is lawn care. Companies want cities to license and regulate the lawn care industry in an attempt to limit competition.

I agree with most of the second part of your post, but can't help but read that and think, "Well great, but that's not the free market!"

I did say some libertarians would disagree with it. Just as with Democrats and Republicans libertarians are a diverse group with different ideas about government. For the 2004 election there were even Libertarians for Dean as well as a website with that as it's domain name.

Falcon

Well I know that's not correct. It's a well-known fact that Europeans pay more than Americans, and Americans pay 35-40% rate. Note that this includes ALL taxes - income, sales, property, school, phone, cellphone, electricity, natural gas (or fuel oil), cable, social security, gasoline/petrol, and medicare/medicaid. Europeans pay about 20% more in taxes than Americans do.

Anyway:

~39% for typical 2-income American family - http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/137.html

Yes, the country is called the United States of America. For this year 2009, the average American will be free of their monetary obligations to the government and can begin keeping their own earned income on April 13th. That means that the tax burden for the average American is about 33%.

This is called "Tax Freedom Day" and is calculated annually by a non profit group in Washington D.C.

http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxfreedomday/

Between this and the Heritage foundation links, it is easy to see why your comments are so laughable.

Um... did you find anything that counters the numbers from the Herritage Foundation graph? No? So you'll ignore facts because you don't like the messenger? You'll only believe what you WANT to be true. Fine, here's a New York Times article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/13/business/13deficit.html?pagewanted=print
others:
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0104655.html
http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/show/1411.html

Oh, and the true source from The Heritage Foundation page is actually Rates from Joint Committee on Taxation publication #JCX-6-01; Receipts from FY 2009 Historical Tables, Budget of the United States Government, Table 2.3.

The Heritage Foundation just put in a pretty graph form. As long as you have all the numbers and they are not "adjusted", Numbers don't lie, no matter what the source is.

California received $0.78 for each $1.00 of taxes its citizens paid to the Federal Governement.

http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/266.html

If you're ready to give up on California, we'll can take our Federal Tax dollars and screw the rest of you (or at least the majority red states feeding at the Federal trough at the expense of New York, California, Illinois and NJ).

Why are people all over the country paying for something that only people in Redmond are benefiting from?

Because people all over the country pay for a lot of things for people in specific areas of the country. Washinton is a donor state receiving $0.88 for each dollar its citizens paid in Federal income tax. And given that Microsoft has its headquarters in Redmond, the city and the county are almost assuredly subsidizing at an even higher rate.

If you want to jump on why the rest of us are paying for things in specific areas of the country, you'll want to focus on New Mexico ($2), Alaska ($1.87), West Virginia ($1.83), Mississippi ($1.77), North Dakota ($1.73), Alabama ($1.71), Virginia ($1.66), Montana ($1.58) and South Dakota ($1.49).

And to answer your question from a more philosophical point of view, we all pay for roads to be built all over the country so that we have the freedom to know that we can drive wherever we want to. As a resident of California (a donor state to the tune of $0.79), I could be irked by how much New Mexico gets. But I choose to remember the vacations I've taken to New Mexico and how roads paid for with federal monies enabled me to take those vacations.

Cutting corporate taxes, which are already lower compared to most other countries

Where do you get that idea? The average combined federal and state corporate tax rate in the U.S. is 39.3 percent, second among OECD countries to Japan's combined rate of 39.5 percent.

It isn't exactly true that illegal immigrants don't pay taxes. For example, many illegal immigrants use a fake social security number so they can get a job. Just like any other worker, part of their income is withheld and sent to the government (especially FICA and payroll taxes). In fact, since they are using fake social security numbers, they can't file for any refund and often times end up paying more than they would have if they had been legal citizens (since many lower income workers end up receiving money back at tax time). While some illegal immigrants work under-the-table jobs and don't pay any income taxes, they still pay sales taxes and other non-income taxes. In addition, many illegal immigrants avoid taking advantage of social services out of fear of being deported, making them less likely to be a drain on these taxpayer-supported institutions.

While illegal immigration is a complex and vexing issue, do not make it out that illegals do not pay taxes. Here is a look at the issue: http://www.taxfoundation.org/blog/show/1424.html

New York and California pay more taxes to the fed than they receive back. You should be complaining about New Mexico, Mississippi or Alaska. http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/266.html

Wow. They are worse than...wait for it...Louisiana. http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/266.html#fedspend_per_taxesbystate-20071009

So let me get this straight. You think other states should contribute to your admittedly high tax system because your senators are so benevolent and decide you really could use that money

Nice try, but according to this the reality is that Massachusetts pays more to the Federal government than it gets in return. How about that, so all that "pork" going to Mass is actually just them getting a percent of their own tax money back. Think of it as a tax rebate... now doesn't that just make your fiscally-conservative heart all aflutter?

Funny how you are so impressed with McCain and yet Arizona is taking in $1.19 per every dollar it pays. Supposedly no pork and yet he's still making off like a bandit. Nice trick that is.

Maybe you are kidding yourself? Data from the IRS say that in 2006, the top 1% contributed 40% of the tax income and the top 5% paid 60%.

Which explains why they want to go somewhere else.

I don't like California very much, but a budget shortfall during a recession is hardly an example of a failed nanny state. Especially when you consider that that its residents receive 78 cents for every dollar they send to the federal government (i.e., it heavily subsidizes other states). It's only a nanny state in the sense that it gives money to Alabamans and Mississippians.

NYC are a bunch of Whiny Babies... Oh we need this service oh we need that... We need more money from Upstate.

who are the whiny leeching babies again?

Well, newest chart I could find is http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/22685.html It shows that California (in 2005) paid $289b and received back $242b. $40billion clears up the deficit by more than double, I believe.