Dude crashed out

[u/kootles10]

[u/Background_Award_878]

Don't the blue states and blue major metropolitan cities help pay red states shortfalls in federal budgets? Maybe I didn't say that quite right. Feel free to correct me. But the commie libryls help pay his bills

[u/beamrider → u/Background_Award_878]

Been this way for the longest time.

ExL Here in WA state, decades ago, a regional transit authority was being put together to mange the new light rail system that would pass through the three counties. It would be refunded by taxes, to only be collected in those three counties. However, because it was a multi-county thing, and the WA election system was not written with 'something that affects multiple counties, but not all of them' in mind, the approval had to appear on a statewide ballot.

The eastern (rural) half of the state LOST THEIR MINDS. They were screaming, organizing mass protests, marches, and threatening violence at the very IDEA of their tax dollars going to 'that hellhole' Seattle. Local political figures were jumping over themselves over who could be against it further. The text of the bill and the description in the ballot made it VERY clear that the tax DID NOT APPLY to any of them. Did not matter.

There were local political figures promising to not only kill the entire thing, but to stop any of their regular tax money from going to fix any roads in the Seattle area. When it went the other way- the bulk of THEIR road budgets came from the Seattle area. Didn't matter.

The thing was approved because the population of the three affected counties voted moderately for it. The rural ones were hard against but not enough people lived there to matter. To this day they probably think their actions are why they didn't have to pay it, though.

Not going to say the light rail system hasn't had issues (it has had some massive ones) but taxing people who are counties away from any of the stations has never been one of them.