Gavin Newsom loves to brag about how rich California is. Here’s a typical post in which he says that “California is the fourth largest economy in the world” and is getting richer every day (“#1 in new business startups”).
Here’s a recent post from Gavin Newsom in which he says that “40 million people [will] lose access to food.” (Note that there are actually more than 40 million people on SNAP, which in no way should be considered “welfare”, but let’s accept 40 million as an approximation.) He doesn’t say that “Except for the 5.5 million Californians on SNAP/EBT (“CalFresh”), who will be fully funded with state tax dollars because California is so rich, SNAP/EBT beneficiaries nationwide will lose access to food.”
So…
- the state is rich
- the political party that runs the state says that inequality is bad
- the political party that runs the state says that taxpayer-funded food is a human right
- there is no political opposition to the ruling party
- the state won’t provide food for its residents unless it can feed at the federal trough
How is it possible for all of the above to be true?
Loosely related because Kentucky isn’t a rich state…
Governor Beshear has a huge charitable heart so long as other people are working longer hours to pay for his charity (kind of like if I borrow my neighbor’s car, donate it to a non-profit org, and then call myself virtuous/charitable). But why won’t he fund free food for all needy Kentuckians with Kentucky state tax dollars?
Utah pays to keep the National Parks open during government shutdowns. As far as I know, it is the only state to do so. Everyone else inflicts suffering on the tourists while blaming whichever political party they oppose.
When there is a will, there is a way. What’s true for the National Parks is also true for SNAP.
That is genius! https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/governors-tap-state-funds-keep-national-parks-open-government-shutdown-rcna235569 says West Virginia and Tennessee are also doing this.
I still can’t understand why the National Parks aren’t run at a massive profit. $35 per visitor per day fee. They shouldn’t need any funding from Congress!
(discount to $0 to Black people because Black visitors to the Parks are more valuable. https://www.backpacker.com/news-and-events/national-parks-diversity/ says “The problem? Seventy-eight percent of those visitors were white. That doesn’t bode well for a country that will be mostly nonwhite by 2044.” (remember that white people becoming a minority cannot be considered a result of a “replacement” process))
It seems that about 20% of NYC’s population receives SNAP benefits. From observation, it seems to me that in NYC’s Chinatown about half the supermarket transactions are completed using EBT cards. The people with the EBT cards typically speak no English and are often elderly. Though you can’t fault the Chinese for what they buy, typically fresh fish, meat and vegetables – no Doritos, Pringles, Little Debbie Cakes and Cola, none of which is typically stocked in a Chinese supermarket. I often wonder who the real beneficiaries of SNAP are, besides the bureaucrats who “administer” the program, since presumably if there was no SNAP food prices would fall so there would be an equilibrium between what people could pay and the price of food.
jdc: That’s a great point. SNAP really should be looked at as a subsidy to agriculture and the food industry. Supermarket food in Portugal was about half the price compared to what we pay in the U.S. and when I visited Argentina about 25 years ago the supermarket food was perhaps one quarter the price (wine was one tenth). If the government didn’t restrict imports and didn’t subsidize buyers with EBT the price of food in the U.S. would fall to the world market level.
California “feeds at the federal trough”?
California is the largest net loser on Federal taxes in absolute terms, sending $78B more than they received in 2023.
https://usafacts.org/articles/which-states-contribute-the-most-and-least-to-federal-revenue/
There sure are a lot of red states at the trough…
David: For anyone who thinks that inequality is bad, the (very likely incorrect) fact that California sends more money to the federal government than it receives in benefits wouldn’t be relevant. As long as California is richer than the average state it should voluntarily give more to the federal treasury and voluntarily take less (so as to reduce inequality).
Separately, the link that you cite follows an obviously flawed methodology in calculating state cashflow. Social Security and Medicare, for example, are the largest federal programs. A person who pays into Social Security/Medicare while working in California and then receives Social Security/Medicare after moving to Arizona for retirement will make it appear that California is an altruistic donor state. (The link you cite shows Maine as a massive “taker” state, but much of that is likely due to the fact that Maine is a massive retirement state, home to the highest percentage of over-65s of any state. California, meanwhile, is one of the youngest states and, therefore, has proportionally more payors and fewer receivers of Social Security and Medicare.) When central planners in DC decide to shower money on health care that boosts the economies of states that are home to pharma companies even when pills are purchased by Medicaid or Medicare in states that have no pharma HQs. When central planners decided to lock down Americans and shower them with printed money that also helped California enormously because California has a lot of entertainment, consumer electronics, and video gaming companies. It looked like the Feds sent money to someone in Maine, perhaps, but the person in Maine who couldn’t go to work during coronapanic immediately turned around and bought a Netflix subscription, a new iPhone, etc.
(A simpler way to analyze the situation: If California were truly being ripped off by the rest of the states, especially those that vote opposite California in elections, then Californians would presumably try to negotiate a secession and, in fact, that’s not what we see.)
@Phil Based on your logic(people retiring), FL should be net receiver of the fed funds, but it is not. You point lot of companies(pharma , entertainment etc) and got lot of carona funds, even before that CA was net provider. Also if CA, NY, IL , MA and WA are so bad for business and have high tax rates why does these companies stay there.
California has been a net donor state to Fed from mid 1980s
Anon: nobody said that “CA, NY, IL , MA and WA are so bad for business”! As to why Florida doesn’t show up in this rudimentary analysis as a “taker” state, despite Florida’s high percentage of over-65 people (eligible for “taking” Social Security and Medicare), that’s a great question! The answer might be that there are a lot of high-income people in Florida and they pay a buttload of federal income tax! Maine has exactly 1 billionaire, according to The Google. By contrast, it’s tough to spit in the street in Palm Beach or certain neighborhoods of Miami Beach and Coral Gables without hitting a billionaire.
Phil, I saw this post below today and I can’t make sense of it (silly me), but I wonder if it is related to your post here? Can you apply your MIT education and explain it to me in really simple terms so I can understand it?
https://x.com/EndWokeness/status/1982875143266546041
They are making fun of the lack of proper grammar shown by EBT recipients
Thanks, Jasmine, for your tireless advocacy on behalf of immigrants. Gemini: “Crockett advocates for improving the immigration system rather than demonizing migrants, stating that immigrants often fill essential labor needs and contribute to the economy.”
I thought that the “is they cutting” Google autocomplete meme was ginned up by a hater, but I tried it for myself and the first completion is, indeed, “is they cutting food stamps”, with “is they cutting section 8” as the second option.
Amazingly Congresswoman Crockett is an alumna of the University of Houston law school. In contrast, Philip’s favorite senator Elizabeth Warren went to Houston for undergrad but Rutgers for law school
Scarlet, is you saying we two peas in a pod?
@philg
I love to see Citizen Science! My data was obtained using the grammatically correct (non-Ebonics) conjugation in Google with “are they cutting”. I got “food stamps” as the first completion; the second was “off food stamps”. I don’t like the politically incorrect term “food stamps” the po-asses keep using. It is technically SNAP, I assume meaning safety net for adjunct po-asses (or peons).
@Jasmine (beautiful name, is you a stripper?)
“Is you is, or is you ain’t (into older white dudes pretending they are parrots)?” We call ourselves “wheathers”, kinda like furries but with feathers. That aside, ScarletNumber said “contrast”, I think meaning that Lizzy went to Our Lady Rutgers, “Queens College” (she has the look of a Rutgers girl, that’s for sure, with her Clint Eastwood stare). It is a lower-ranked mid-tier law school. Lizzy is also originally an Okie, which is cool, but she kinda puts on airs.
The real joke is that food stamps were supposed to be a safety net. Within a short time, the program expanded beyond that idea and is now a structural element of the Immigrant/Indigent Industrial Complex. If we was to cut food stamps, the money probably would just go into the the defense budget instead, not much of a win. Reading the rules for SNAP, there must be a lot of pro bono work going into advising “clients” about the best way to become vested in it. It’s too complicated for us working-class Joes.
Corrections/Clarifications: 🕊️[Dove delivering weed to a SNAP recipient as an offering of peace.]
Being scrupulously politically-correct, I should explain that I use po-ass in the literary sense, earliest seen in “On the Road” by Jack Kerouac, as “poor-ass”. Like Jasmine, I was born in St. Louis. Actually, an ultra-wealthy suburb of St. Louis, but I do feel the connection.
Perhaps my large cadre of diverse litchick girlfriends is right, maybe I need to expand my artistic interests beyond dead white guys. For example, the refererence to “Is you is, or is you ain’t (my baby)?” is from Sinatra:
Democrats threatened to sue to block Trump from funding military paychecks only to turn around and sue to force Trump to fund SNAP.
Says a lot about priorities; both lawfare and America last.
Steve, is you saying bad stuff bout us demcrats?
@Jazzy Jas
I hate to disrupt your peaceful trolling, but, um… Accurately describing the incongruous nature of Democrats’ words versus their actions in the context of partisanship isn’t “talking bad”, it is quod erat demonstrandum. Savvy?
And yet when we sweet-talk you, you swipe left. (Remember how I thought your stripper name was beautiful? I have beautiful plumage.) Is it because I’m a wheatherby? That would be very non-inclusive. I was only teasing though, I’m taken–pair bonded to lady parrot who can conjugate “to be” in real-time.
Check this out if you want some trash-talking in the reverse direction:
https://www.democracynow.org/2025/10/28/government_shutdown
As a furloughed government worker said to them while waiting in a food line, “I don’t have no paycheck in my account.” Indeed, were you expecting one?