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Comment by thegayngler | Hacker News Reader

In theory, I agree. However, why should California and the rest of the blue states be financing the whole country when the other states can collect their own taxes to pay for disaster relief and other items they need. They are already getting more taxes back than they paid in.

Blue states are getting screwed and really aren't getting adequate federal government representation at the levels their tax dollars and populations would in theory dictate they should have.

Shouldn't states be more responsible for their own well being rather than what we have now a situation where states just offload their responsibility as a state to the federal government? ...and the states are subject to the whims of whomever is in power in the federal government at the time which has higher risk than people are accounting for and as you have already alluded to is being abused even if it ultimately is in theory the right policy?

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>why should California and the rest of the blue states be financing the whole country

The tax code doesn't say that blue states have to pay more, it says wealthy people have to pay more. As a result, wealthy states pay in more than they get out.

Taxing the rich to fund social programs to help the poor means money will flow from Silicon Valley and Hollywood to rural West Virginia.

Part of it isn't even "wealth" as much as it is "higher cost levels". There's no simple policy answer to this, but increasing marginal tax rates are meant to be a proxy for the diminishing marginal utility of money. In states with a higher price level, citizens are getting taxed at higher rates than their level of wealth would otherwise imply, just due to the inefficiency of the policy.

It's the equivalent of failing to adjust for inflation, just spatially instead of across time. As I said though, there's no easy fix that let's you define cost levels in a principled way and adjust for them, so this isn't quite bad policy as much as an unfortunate imperfection in it.

Being able to pay higher costs shows you are wealthier. Living in California is a luxury good which no one is required to purchase. If I suddenly decide to trade my Toyota in for a Porsche that doesn't lower my taxable income.

So you want to reduce taxes on the wealthy?

I don't really disagree with that. But you'll need to convince democrats of this to make it happen. They are the ones who want really high taxes for wealthy people.

> However, why should California and the rest of the blue states be financing the whole country when the other states can collect their own taxes to pay for disaster relief and other items they need

Note that California is basically neutral on the balance of payments: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-02-05/think-....

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