<p>notrich- I believe he has his own formula that discounts certain items.</p>
<p>I had a look at a report done from 1982 - 2005 and it showed net federal dollars in and out that could be identified. It showed that MA is a fairly strong net donor state.</p>
<p>I would agree that MA gets a lot of defense and NIH money and that donor/recipient analysis doesn’t count some of the tax and ed benefits that students receive (I’d assume that those are counted as recipient money for students in their home states) but MA is a high income state and there are a lot of companies and company divisions in the state that make a lot of money and pay a lot of taxes (those that don’t have foreign tax dodges) to the Federal Government and I’d say that it’s a net donor despite all of the money that comes in. The 1981-2005 numbers should cover the Big Dig too which was one of the big Federal transportation boondoggles many years ago.</p>
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<p>I assume that there is some value to federal subsidized loans and would guess that those are counted in the states where students live. There are also the Federal tax credits and deductions for tuition/books and the student interest deduction.</p>
<p>I just had a look at Federal costs to teaching hospitals (there are a lot of them in MA) and it looks like they are funded out of Medicare. Cost in FY2011 was $6.4 billion. I looked at a document detailing losses to states on proposed Medicare cuts to teaching hospitals and the impact to MA is $767M (economic), 5115 jobs, $46M (tax loss). MA is apparently third in this spending. NY and PA are first and second.</p>
<p>There is a lot of military spending along the Merrimack Valley in both NH and MA. In NH, we have BAE - the spending impact of BAE in the greater Nashua area is estimated at a billion a year (saw this in the Nashua Telegraph a while back). There are defense companies all along Route 3 from 128 to Nashua and along Route 128. I think that some of the universities in MA received a fair amount of DOD money. I recall reading research papers at the Barker Engineering Library when I was a teenager and seeing the funding sources on various projects.</p>
<p>I went to a career fair in NH once and was amazed at the number of colleges in New England. There were a bunch of them that I had never heard of, tucked here and there in the region. I’m not surprised that there are a lot of them in MA. It sort of explains why the state systems are so underfunded - no need to fund public higher ed when there are all of these private options around.</p>
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<p>This article’s methodology is Federal income taxes. North Dakota produces a lot of oil which gets turned into transportation fuels and other products like home heating fuel. There are federal transportation taxes on the fuel sales and it doesn’t look as if those taxes are considered in the 24/7 study.</p>
<p>There was an article in The Globe yesterday on MA college students lobbying at The State House for more public higher ed. OK ne student at Holyoke Community College has $24,000 in debt. community college in MA is about $4,000 per year and there are federal taz credits worth $2,400 per year. how did she rack up that much debt?</p>
<p>I think some kids take out loans and use them for living expenses. Maybe they spent more than two years there as well.</p>
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<p>I had a look at HCC and it’s about $2,210 per semester for 15 credits so $4,500 per year. Health insurance is $1K if she’s not covered under another policy. The federal tax credit is $2,400 for that amount. There is a state tax credit too but I don’t know how that works. So let’s say $2,500/year. I think that living expenses have to be involved - but that seems pretty pricey for two years.</p>
<p>I have a nephew and he’s floundered educationally but right now he has a full-time security job and he’s taking two community college courses and living with four other guys in a cheap apartment. I think that his rent is under $400/month. He lives about an hour away from home and very close to his community college. I would not be surprised if he were self-sufficient (I didn’t ask my sister but the number seem to work out) - it may not be the ideal living situation but it’s fine for starting out.</p>
<p>I personally think that community college in MA is already a pretty good bargain. Not as nice as it is in California but it should be a cheaper option. This particular student is obviously looking for more funding for UMass - she is transferring there after graduating this spring. I do think that students don’t need to go into that kind of debt to get two years out of CC unless they have no parental or other support and even then, could get work to decrease debt. MA unemployment is moderately lower than it is in the rest of the country.</p>
<p>I couldn’t find the Globe article you are referring to on-line, but it would not surprise me this person didn’t know about the tax credit. Plus, I think only $1000 is refundable, did this person make enough money to owe any income tax?</p>
<p>Did all of the debt come from attending Holyoke? They may have had some from earlier attendance somewhere else.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.boston.com/metrodesk/2013/03/05/students/Xi5hLPcu3Larul0ff2TzsN/story.html[/url]”>http://www.boston.com/metrodesk/2013/03/05/students/Xi5hLPcu3Larul0ff2TzsN/story.html</a></p>
<p>I looked her up (she apparently spends a lot of time on the internet/social media). She’s been going to HCC for four years and her linked-in profile lists no job history. I guess that I could see $24,000 in debt for four years in school if it’s not subsidized. I’d guess that she’s living with her parents so at least they should be able to claim the tax credit if they know enough to do so.</p>
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<p>That tax credit disappears if the family income is too high.</p>
<p>Still, it seems like the young woman has lots of loan debt given that she’s attending a CC where the tuition is $4500 per year. The other good thing about community colleges in MA is that if a student finishes two years with a 2.5 GPA, he/she is automatically admitted to UMass. Plus, if he/she has a higher GPA, it’s possible to get tuition waivers–I know the tuition at UMass isn’t as much as other fees, but the waiver helps a little.</p>
<p>Wanted to add that I learned from an NYT column of 3/9 that it’s important to look at tax structures more than at rates. For example, we think of Vermont as a high tax state and Mississippi as a low tax state, but a single mother with 2 kids making low wages ends up with $2300 more at the end of the year in Vermont. (That was figured as of 2008 for a book that came out in 2011.) The difference: progressivity in tax rates and credits versus Mississippi, which ends up taxing the lower earners more.</p>
<p>The information came in the way of a discussion of negative outcomes and what those cost. As in: more poverty = more death & more property crime. But it also suggests a less progressive tax system at the state level costs people in other states: we end up paying our tax money to Mississippi - and basically to all the other Southern states other than Texas, which is barely the other way. So we’ve transferred something on the order of $240B to Mississippi over 20 years. (New Jersey lost $706B.) </p>
<p>I find that argument interesting: it suggests that policies which perpetuate poverty, including regressive taxation, are subsidized by the federal government’s transfer of wealth. Funny thing is the people arguing against redistribution are found in largest percentage in the South. The idea they put forward is their policies are “pro-growth” but it seems more to me they are “pro-moocher”; they could not maintain their regime without our money propping them up. Makes me think we should pass a law saying our tax money stays in our state. We could then watch these other states fail. They’d have to do things like invest in education and progressive taxation. So maybe liberalism says that liberalism is wrong but only because it subsidizes the moochers who are anti-liberal. Funny.</p>
<p>Lergnom, that was a great article.</p>
<p>“Makes me think we should pass a law saying our tax money stays in our state. We could then watch these other states fail. They’d have to do things like invest in education and progressive taxation. So maybe liberalism says that liberalism is wrong but only because it subsidizes the moochers who are anti-liberal. Funny.”</p>
<p>Yeah… :)</p>
<p>[Joe</a> Flacco actually isn’t the NFL’s highest-paid player](<a href=“http://www.usatoday.com/story/gameon/2013/03/08/joe-flacco-highest-paid-player-not-taxes/1972931/]Joe”>Joe Flacco actually isn't the NFL's highest-paid player)</p>
<p>Does anyone feel bad for Flacco?</p>
<p>Cough, cough, Big Dig.</p>
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<p>Yeah, we could be just as dysfunctional as Europe.</p>
<p>The last couple of posts make no sense…</p>
<p>[In</a> the South and West, a Tax on Being Poor - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/09/in-the-south-and-west-a-tax-on-being-poor/]In”>In the South and West, a Tax on Being Poor - The New York Times)</p>
<p>Do people still read ny times?</p>
<p>Yes, we do.</p>
<p>Yeah… Who cares about the effects of regressive taxation? The poor have less money so they need more government services. Because the poor have less to spend, businesses make less money and employ fewer workers. The economy ends up smaller. </p>
<p>But yeah… Who reads the NY Times?</p>
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I don’t have a lot of faith in these numbers, without a lot more information about exactly where the money is flowing.</p>
<p>For example, how many people in New Jersey, which is a high income state and therefore pays a lot in FICA tax, retire to a low cost state? Are their higher than average SS checks counted as a transfer to that state?</p>
<p>I think there are more military bases in the south and west, that require large amounts of money to run. Is it “unfair” that some or much of money comes from other states?</p>
<p>Defense and SS are the two biggest items in the budget.</p>
<p>Lower Federal tax receipts means that wages in the state are lower than other states, and I’m skeptical that there is a cause/effect relationship between the tax burden on the poor and the wage levels of their residents.</p>
<p>^ does no one move from NJ to Florida and Arizona?</p>