Saturday, November 14, 2009

What would you do with...

Hi all, I am wondering...What would you do with the extra money if the state you currently lived in suddenly started receiving as much money as New Mexico, Alaska, West Virginia, etc?


Thank you Taxfoundation.org for this wonderful graphic, which you can click on to see fully.

The way you can calculate this is by going to this page then multiply the amount your state spends by the ratio one of these other states receives per dollar in taxes. Then subtract by the amount your state actually receives, then you can tell me how you'd spend that greenback.

ie:
Illinois Taxes (2005) NM Illinois federal funding (2005)
($ 99,776,000,000 x $2 ) - $80,778,000,000 = $118,774,000,000

I'd add another track to all passenger rail corridors where physically possible, and add two tracks on high speed corridors. Build the circle line, the yellow, red, blue and orange line extensions. Then spend the rest on a single payer state health plan & university scholarships.

but then again that is selfish.

because that extra money would be equal to about a fifth of social security costs, and half the national debt interest.

so, a more realistic calculation using a similar formula from that same info would be

IL taxes 2005 - IL fed. funding (2005)
$ 99,776,000,000 - $80,778,000,000 = $18,998,000,000

I'd spend it over 10 years on the same things, then once the infrastructure projects were finished, invest in replacing all power with renewable sources.

If I had more time on my hands I might actually budget it out, because I'm that big of a nerd. But, I have loads of work to get back to, so I'll just leave this theoretical, fun exercise.

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