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Comment by vturner | Hacker News Reader

This may be somewhat off-topic, but I'm often surprised that leftist policies like the article advocates are often proposed at a national level? Why is this? Why not propose a state-sponsored child-care system in a leftist state - California, Washington, Massachusetts, etc. I'm not trying to start a war here, simply genuinely interested why people on the left push national social programs versus propose them in very wealthy left-leaning states?

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They are, even at a more local level. New York City, for example, has a free pre-k (4yo) program. But in order to be effective, some of these policies need to be applied nationwide. In other cases, state budgets are simply too constrained for them. Like someone said in the comments, this is a program that could paid itself with the income tax from both parents working, but in the US the majority of income tax goes to the federal government, I think.

> Like someone said in the comments, this is a program that could paid itself with the income tax from both parents working

That's a bit of a weird point to make, though. That income tax is already going toward paying for government programs. If you divert some of that to pay for early child care, some other programs will be left under- or unfunded.

The reality is that currency-issuing federal governments everywhere run perpetual deficits (and some economists argue they have no revenue constraints at all.) States can't do this.

The idea is that these programs bring additional tax revenue by encouraging parents to work

Unless the subsidy enabled workers to work instead of mind children, and thus pay more income or consumption tax. NOT APPLICABLE IN STATES WITHOUT SUCH TAX.

Many states (perhaps all?) must have a balanced budget every year. This means that these programs also need to have financing attached to them—so your free childcare plan either includes a new/higher tax, and/or cuts to other programs. Makes it a much harder sell.

The free rider problem is usually the reason We Can't Have Nice Things at the state level.

There’s a very dramatic “I’m right and your wrong” narcissism on the left, that feels stronger than the narcisismo on the right or center - led by stronger emotions for their beliefs than the others. I’m not entirely sure why but it almost seems tautologically explained by the left more strongly following their emotions.

Left people feel emotionally obligated to spread their “correct” opinions that “help people” as far as possible. Nationally > state.

They do, to some extent. See this link for example[1]. But states are constrained in ways that the federal government is not.

The main difference is that the federal government can 'print money' to fund spending (the most recent tax cuts were essentially funded that way) and hope that long term economic growth from the policy change negates the increased deficit.

The second reason is that the Federal government takes more of the tax pie than states do. According to this link[2], the federal government gets 65%, states take 20%, and cities/municipalities 15%. And keep in mind that a good chunk of the federal money goes back to the states via federal programs. So if you are going to target your policy initiatives, might as well aim for the biggest slice of the pie.

[1] https://www.chs-ca.org/child-care-payment-program [2] https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/what-breakdown...

Why would an activist's article propose a state-level policy? The point of activism is to push the agenda forward by demanding a lot MORE than you can practically get via compromise.

Just a guess but the areas where they may have the greatest economic impact may not be the wealthy states like CA, MA, WA, but some of the poorer states.

This is just a guess, but in America basically all taxes are taken at the federal level. It's easier to move that money around then add on state taxes.

"Basically all"? I disagree. I think that state taxes total about half of federal taxes.

That's the outlier, though. Most states tend to hover in the 5% range. A few states have 0 income tax, but typically make up for it with property tax. But nowhere close to the Federal tax rate...

Most states hover in the 5% revenue compared to what the federal government collects in that state? I strongly disagree.

For example, Utah's tax revenue was $9.9 billion in 2018-2019. Federal was $3.6 trillion. But Utah only has 1% of the US population. So if the rest of the states taxed at the rate Utah does, that would be $990 billion, which is about 1/4 of the Federal take. It's way more than 5%. And Utah is not a high-tax state.

Interesting math. Where does it come from if not income? Corporate taxes? Sales/fuel taxes?

Well, I looked at total revenue. So that will be income tax, sales tax, gasoline tax, property tax (if any of that goes to the state), car registration fees... everything. You can look at individual states and get the breakdown. For Utah, it's primarily income and sales tax.

Because those states already taxed their citizens to the breaking point. It's much easier to pass it off to the federal government where you can't escape by moving to Florida.

That is interesting. I wonder how other national programs are generally funded (or would be funded, Medicare For All for example). Are they massive wealth transfers from low tax to high tax states?

The biggest wealth transfer from low to high tax states tends to be low-GDP areas like the midwest spending tax money to educate people, and then having their best and brightest move away to generate tax income for New York and California.

It has been reliably demonstrated for decades that conservative poor states receive more national (federal) dollars than they pay in to the system. Wealthy states like California and New York recieve less than 95% of the funds they put in. The NASA campus in Huntsville, Alabama was put there for no other reason than to funnel national dollars into the state for decades. Johnston Space Center (i.e. Mission Control for Apollo/Moon, ISS etc) in Houston, until SpaceX built their spaceport in Texas, was built over a thousand miles from the nearest rocket launch pad for similar reasons. Just one example.

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