Written by by Danny Westneat at seattletimes.com
Remember when we were talking about how Seattle now has 54,000 millionaires? Well, they’re making news again.
The other day, the Wall Street investor and former Obama administration official Steven Rattner was musing about the irony of the redistribution of wealth in the nation.
“If you look at who gets and who gives,” he said, “the government is tilted in favor of the red states. … Red states spend more federal dollars than they contribute, blue states are getting the short end of the stick.”
Guess who now is holding one of the shortest sticks of all?
Rattner was referring to an annual analysis called “Giving or Getting?” It looks at how much the economies of each state generates in federal taxes, combined with how many billions are then returned to be spent there.
New York has long been one of the top “donor” states in the nation. That means it has paid more in taxes than it gets back in benefits or spending on education, transportation, military or welfare — often by tens of billions of dollars. New York’s imbalance is mainly due to all the tax revenue that flows from highflying Wall Street.
Well, our little fishing village just passed them.
It turns out Washington state now is the No. 3 donor state in the nation, behind only California and Massachusetts. (New York fell to a tie for fourth.) People and companies here paid $22.5 billion more into the federal treasury in 2022 than we got back in spending, according to the Rockefeller Institute of Government.
Washington state put more money into the system than states with millions more people, such as Ohio, Michigan and Georgia. And then far less was spent here.
This phenomenon has been derisively referred to as the “makers” and “takers.” Twenty years ago, Washington was more in the middle of the pack — we got about what we gave. But lately due to Big Tech we have surged to become one of the top “maker” states in the nation.
It’s all those millionaires, economic analysts say. The cry for years has been “tax the rich,” but the reality is the federal system already does that. Because of the progressive federal income tax, those 54,000 millionaires in Seattle, plus countless more wealthy people and companies around the region, are generating a bonanza for the federal government.
That money then gets doled out more to red states — where their politicians not only refuse to acknowledge the help, but often deride even the concept of it.