New York Is No "Donor State"
In truth, high-tax blue states are net "receivers" of federal funds, New York foremost among them, according to Matthew Schoenfeld, a Chicago-based municipal bond portfolio manager.
He gored one of the sacred cows of New Yorkers (and many municipal analysts). What's more, Mr. Schoenfeld did it publicly — in the Wall Street Journal's Opinion Page on July 22, 2020. Governor Andrew Cuomo, (D.NY) has repeatedly flouted a list of "donor states" topped by New York, which "gives" $29 bln. a year more than it "got" from 2015 through 2018. The source of the Governor's claim is the Rockefeller Institute's "Giving or Getting" which was published in 2017.
Mr. Schoenfeld wrote, "It isn't so simple. A food stamp isn't the same as a serviceman's paycheck. The former can be characterized as a federal subsidy — a gift in Mr. Cuomo's parlance — while the latter cannot. The Rockefeller report treats both as gifts, distorting who gets what.
"Texas is home to nearly 219,000 military personnel, New York 60,000. It's no surprise federal defense-related ex- penditures in Texas dwarfed those in New York. From this the Rockefeller report implies Texas got $51 bln. more than New York — for the privilege of defending the whole country." That doesn't square. If the DOD's spending is used to allocate the "value of the defense provided by the federal government by population" in 2018, New York got $2 bln. more than it gave.
What's more Mr. Schoenfeld's analysis shows how blue states disproportionately reap the benefits of federal subsidization for municipal debt issuance. Based on the Congressional Budget Office 2018 estimate, New York State got more than $9 bln. than it received (bringing the total got to $11 bln.) Back out the $2 bln. in social security payments that New York State avoids because its retirees move to warmer climates, and the "get" grows to $13 bln.
