New idea on how to more "fairly" distribute state taxes and federal money given to states

In many states where there are large metropolitan centers with high populations such as California, New York, Pennsylvania and many others, it seems that much of the state money goes to spending programs within these metro areas while the rural areas and even suburban areas are neglected in many if not all aspects. When a state gets federal money to use throughout the state, it is too often the case that the money is used in the metro areas with total neglect to the rural areas and this is also an issue with state taxes from income taxes, sales tax, fees for all things such as licences, permits, registration, etc. I suggest that a new bill be introduced in states that would like to correct this issue that would legislate a more even distribution of all funds that flow through the state from federal money to all monies from state taxes, fees, etc. I think it would be beneficial for the people who support this issue to work with groups from other states to form a basic outline of this process and then each state can tailor it to the individual state(s).

I also suggest that each state make it the responsibility of each county to collect all taxes. The taxes should be calculated and finally processed at a single location such as the state capitol, but each county is responsible for ensuring those who do not pay do so properly or face prosecution. The county sheriff should be in charge of this process as he is an elected official and could use the state police to help enforce any prosecution orders should the sheriff need assistance.

As far as deciding how the taxes are distributed, as said above this could be determined by state and possibly even on a county level (though some counties could be taken advantage of or not taxed fairly/enough). Legislation could say something like 70% of all taxes collected within the county are either retained or returned to that county and 60% of federal money given to the state is distributed evenly (by population, sq mileage, ?? etc) to each county. This would mean that 30% of taxes and 40% of federal money remains for the state to be spend as it sees fit, anywhere in the state. Obviously these numbers are just an example and IDK what would be a fair amount.

Now I'm sure there will be counties that will need more money than what they receive as they are used to spending more than what they generate and there will be counties that will find themselves with immense budget surpluses with legislation such as this. In cases such as this, there should be an inter-county loan system set up where counties can load surplus funds to other counties either for some kind of non-monetary compensation or at interest. If a county wants money to improve a road that connects to a neighboring county (which is heavily used by their neighbors in that county), the neighboring county might agree to loan the money at no interest, or even help pay for the project.

If money is loaned to another county, there also needs to be non-payment penalties, late payment penalties and the like which should be able to be waived by the issuing county should they deem it appropriate (though this could be abused if the person in office who decides this is of opposing political ideology than the predominate party of the issuing county - so this would need protective mechanisms). I'm not sure what appropriate penalties could be other than monetary but since the state distributes taxes & fed money yearly, there could be clauses that state when loan is in default, repayment can be collected directly from the yearly state payment which the state should be obligated to uphold. This may need to go to court (if county disputes this) but as most civil issues, the loser would have to pay court/legal fees there would be fewer counties fighting this as a loss in court would only make repayment more expensive (this could also be abused by hiring cohort/sycophant law firms to sue the issuing company to give them a large pay day - this could be guarded against by limiting # of attorneys, legal spending, etc)

Without doing something like this I see that careless and reckless government spending will continue and the tax payers in the lower population areas/counties will continue being pulled down into poverty due to the lack of spending on infrastructure, education, etc, when they are doing their part to pay for these services, the state should ensure that they get reasonable "compensation" for faithfully paying taxes and actually working at jobs/careers to fund the state budget.

I don't know if there is anything like this in place in any state or if there is anything similar to this anywhere. If anyone has any knowledge of legislation such as this or similar or has any ideas that would be good to add to this, reasons this would be a bad idea, please post so we can have a discussion about this.

Counties have local , property , tag , sales , and school taxes.
They should not be dependent on State or Federal taxes
My county has had a surplus for over 20 years now.
Without regulation by a Sherrif's department

a reply to: DigginFoTroof

I don't think you have researched this topic but instead rely on anecrodotal narrative.


If you look at the reality. It's complicated but for the most part moderate density rural area is the largest expense in state budgets.

Cities like NYC actually provide the "income" to pay for higher jobless rates in the upstate.

Same in California. The thriving economies in California cities for the most part are enough to pay for themselves and folks where there are less jobs.

If you look at states who take more than they give the vast majority are rural.



This isn't by chance.

Now mismanagement happens and ghost cities like Detroit are a problem with lack of industry and high dense population.

But look at what states are takers. Largely rural areas.

Also add again it is very complicated depended on revenue collected. Not only are dense areas like NYC paying they are collecting massive taxes. City tax, state, federal, on and on from individuals, then there are investors, banks, property, mega corporations head quarters, on and on,..you don't get those in Plattsburg.

a reply to: Gothmog

Tell that to Alabama and new Mexico.

originally posted by: luthier
a reply to: Gothmog

Tell that to Alabama and new Mexico.

Why ?

a reply to: luthier

I'm not going to argue that I'm pretty unaware of how the state spends it's revenue. What I have heard, which is probably my mistake for taking this as fact, is that the vast majority of federal money and even state money goes to the larger population centers, especially in the states I mentioned. This may not be the case in other states where there is only one large metro area and a few smaller cities (50-200K population). I'm not even sure how to find out where the state spends it's money as far as distribution. It would be nice for each state to have something like this with a breakdown, and if they already do this I'll do some more digging and see if I can find it. I know they post things like how much they spend on education and some other services, but my previous searches left me wanting for a more detailed breakdown of how "funding" is spent, and especially the source of any money spent.

I think it is a crime that this type of thing isn't taught in schools. I was asked about civics classes which I haven't heard of since the late 70's or so and our government classes were called social studies which didn't cover anything necessary to really understand how the gov was funded, how it distributed the funds and where/how it spent money. There was more time spent on silly model UN exercises with it taking up the bulk of the class time and was totally worthless (hey, maybe that was the point as it mirrored the real UN!!).

originally posted by: luthier
a reply to: DigginFoTroof

I don't think you have researched this topic but instead rely on anecrodotal narrative.


If you look at the reality. It's complicated but for the most part moderate density rural area is the largest expense in state budgets.

Cities like NYC actually provide the "income" to pay for higher jobless rates in the upstate.

Same in California. The thriving economies in California cities for the most part are enough to pay for themselves and folks where there are less jobs.

If you look at states who take more than they give the vast majority are rural.



This isn't by chance.

Now mismanagement happens and ghost cities like Detroit are a problem with lack of industry and high dense population.

But look at what states are takers. Largely rural areas.

Also add again it is very complicated depended on revenue collected. Not only are dense areas like NYC paying they are collecting massive taxes. City tax, state, federal, on and on from individuals, then there are investors, banks, property, mega corporations head quarters, on and on,..you don't get those in Plattsburg.

The classic urban planning textbook "The Exploding Metropolis" covered this back in the 1950's/1960's.

Young families are consumers of tax income. They need schools, daycare, hospitals and community centres. When the parents get better paying jobs, they can afford larger homes, more luxuries and start covering their own costs. Then when they are retired, the mortgage has been paid off and they are living off their pensions, and oppose any new taxes.

Somewhere like the Bay Area, all the cities were zoning the land on the borders of their doman for commercial use, so that their neighbors would have to pick up the tab for roads and residential housing. In the 1950's, residents moved there to retire, but they started moving out due to the traffic and congestion. Families moving in would demolish the old homes and replace them with "monster homes" because there was so little garden space.

a reply to: DigginFoTroof

Why does it take another idea?

I would have thought the obvious answer of a mixture of capitalism and socialism would be as obvious as the nose on ones face.

Funny how for so many people there is only ever two views on anything and they are the two found at the extremes of each and every arguement.

I say arguement and not discussion, because life expereince teaches us that for people who only have bi-polar views, everything is an arguement not a discussion.

originally posted by: DigginFoTroof
a reply to: luthier

I'm not going to argue that I'm pretty unaware of how the state spends it's revenue. What I have heard, which is probably my mistake for taking this as fact, is that the vast majority of federal money and even state money goes to the larger population centers, especially in the states I mentioned. This may not be the case in other states where there is only one large metro area and a few smaller cities (50-200K population). I'm not even sure how to find out where the state spends it's money as far as distribution. It would be nice for each state to have something like this with a breakdown, and if they already do this I'll do some more digging and see if I can find it. I know they post things like how much they spend on education and some other services, but my previous searches left me wanting for a more detailed breakdown of how "funding" is spent, and especially the source of any money spent.

I think it is a crime that this type of thing isn't taught in schools. I was asked about civics classes which I haven't heard of since the late 70's or so and our government classes were called social studies which didn't cover anything necessary to really understand how the gov was funded, how it distributed the funds and where/how it spent money. There was more time spent on silly model UN exercises with it taking up the bulk of the class time and was totally worthless (hey, maybe that was the point as it mirrored the real UN!!).

Would it make sense that more money goes to larger populations? More internal infrastructure? More people..

The thing is there aren't a lot of google's and boeings far away from airports and cities. Cities with low unemployment are also paying in far more to the federal government. Far more.

originally posted by: DigginFoTroof
a reply to: luthier

I'm not going to argue that I'm pretty unaware of how the state spends it's revenue. What I have heard, which is probably my mistake for taking this as fact, is that the vast majority of federal money and even state money goes to the larger population centers, especially in the states I mentioned. This may not be the case in other states where there is only one large metro area and a few smaller cities (50-200K population). I'm not even sure how to find out where the state spends it's money as far as distribution. It would be nice for each state to have something like this with a breakdown, and if they already do this I'll do some more digging and see if I can find it. I know they post things like how much they spend on education and some other services, but my previous searches left me wanting for a more detailed breakdown of how "funding" is spent, and especially the source of any money spent.

I think it is a crime that this type of thing isn't taught in schools. I was asked about civics classes which I haven't heard of since the late 70's or so and our government classes were called social studies which didn't cover anything necessary to really understand how the gov was funded, how it distributed the funds and where/how it spent money. There was more time spent on silly model UN exercises with it taking up the bulk of the class time and was totally worthless (hey, maybe that was the point as it mirrored the real UN!!).

Urban areas have vast populations thus they get most of the money.