# Washington state taxes and expenditures **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 1, 2011, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-state-taxes-and-expenditures/580399 "2011-05-01T19:10:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2011, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-state-taxes-and-expenditures/580399/1 "2011-05-01T19:10:07Z")
[I found this interesting](http://depts.washington.edu/geog/2011/02/revenueexpenditure-disparities-by-county-in-washington-state/). The map shows the number of dollars received from the state by counties, and the counties’ political leanings are portrayed. The article quotes _The Stranger_, a free paper with Liberal leanings: > [@](#): > > How big is this disparity? According to 2008 budget figures compiled by the state’s Office of Financial Management at the request of Representatives Reuven Carlyle (D-Seattle) and Glenn Anderson (R-Fall City), King County, with roughly 29 percent of the state population, produced 42 percent of state tax revenues, yet it received back less than 26 percent of state benefits. That’s a return of only 62 cents on the dollar for our state’s Democratic stronghold. > > Compare that to the generous $3.16 return on each dollar enjoyed by taxpayers in hard Republican Ferry County in deep northeastern Washington. All in all, _only six_ counties qualified as “net donors” to the rest of the state—San Juan, King, Skagit, Kittitas, Whatcom, and Snohomish—while the remaining 33 counties enjoyed an average return on investment of over $1.40 on every tax dollar sent to Olympia. [_The Stranger_](http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/welfare-state/Content?oid=6686284) is linked in the University of Washington’s article, and goes on to say: > [@](#): > > The irony here is _not_ that those who benefit most from state spending are paying the least; that’s kinda the way these things are supposed to work. No, the irony is that those rural communities that are most dependent on the state—whose roads and schools and other essential public services couldn’t possibly be maintained without generous state subsidies—are also those least likely to vote for the tax dollars necessary to sustain these services. Just look at the map on the previous page: Those counties that receive the most money back on the dollar are also those that are most likely to vote Republican. Nobody _wants_ to pay taxes. Heck, I’m a Liberal and I’d rather have more money I can spend on myself. But I understand that we receive benefits for the taxes we pay. Some of these benefits are good roads to drive on, fire protection, and other emergency services. Some of the benefits do not benefit me directly, but I pay for them anyway. I don’t have kids, and I’ll never have kids; but I’m happy that some of my taxes go toward educating other people’s kids. An educated populace is good for the economy, and a good economy is beneficial to me. Welfare? Touch wood, I’ll never need it. But I don’t mind my taxes going to DSHS. A family receiving aid is more likely to be healthier than one living under an overpass, which reduces demand on our medical system. ‘Wait,’ you say, ‘Giving away health care _reduces_ demand?’ I think so. Problems detected early tend to be less expensive and less demanding of resources that ones detected late. DSHS isn’t directly beneficial to me, but I reap benefits down the line because it’s there for other people it _does_ directly benefit. I think that if we accept the benefits of living in a modern society, we should be willing to pay for our fair share of those benefits – even if we’re paying for someone else. (Aside: I’m reminded of one gun control argument. ‘Why do you _need_ a gun?’ ‘I don’t. I also don’t need a fire extinguisher, but I have one anyway.’ It just makes sense to pay for services you might not use, so that they are there in case you do need them.) So the people who complain most loudly about paying their fair share of the cost of operating a society are the ones who benefit most. Personally I’d love to earn a 40% return on my investments. (Or a 316% return in the case of one county.) If I did, I wouldn’t complain about my investment. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2011, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-state-taxes-and-expenditures/580399/2 "2011-05-01T20:21:15Z")
All this article really shows is that people in more populated areas tend to be more liberal. And more populated areas tend to generate more tax dollars. So far so boring–I think both of these are what we would expect, so the conclusion isn’t all that exciting. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2011, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-state-taxes-and-expenditures/580399/3 "2011-05-01T20:25:39Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > And more populated areas tend to generate more tax dollars. … Which flow _out_ of those areas and _into_ the areas where people pay fewer taxes. You miss the point: That those people in this state who pay less are the ones who are complaining about paying taxes – even though the money they receive is greater than the money they pay. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2011, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-state-taxes-and-expenditures/580399/4 "2011-05-01T20:39:43Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > … Which flow _out_ of those areas and _into_ the areas where people pay fewer taxes. You miss the point: That those people in this state who pay less are the ones who are complaining about paying taxes – even though the money they receive is greater than the money they pay. I still say it’s just an effect of population size. Let’s say the government fixes a road in two different areas. In one area, 200 people live on the road. In the other area, 5 people live on the road. So the numbers show that those 5 people got a much higher bang for their tax buck. And people in more populated areas tend to pay more taxes because jobs there pay more. You (and the article) seem to think there’s some great irony here, but it’s just a quirk of relative population sizes in the different counties. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2011, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-state-taxes-and-expenditures/580399/5 "2011-05-01T20:55:26Z")
Yes, there is a great irony. The eastern populations are the ones who object most to welfare. And yet King County recipients only receive $538 per capita. Recipients in the Republican-leaning counties get up to $1,129 per capita. Your road analogy doesn’t work here. In addition, Seattle is a much more expensive place to live than Yakima; so that ~50% lower payment isn’t worth as much. ---
**Author:** ![sitchensis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sitchensis/32/4892_2.png) [@sitchensis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sitchensis)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2011, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-state-taxes-and-expenditures/580399/6 "2011-05-01T21:10:37Z")
King County is a transportation hub. The goods that they transport into WA are being used in those other counties. They goods that they transport out are being created in those other counties. You think when they spend money on a highway to get apples from Wenatchee to Japan the cost of the highway should be on the rural apple orchards and not the international shipping conglomerate. King County is a financial hub. Yes, US Bank has a big skyscraper and lots of highly paid vice presidents who can get together and move a lot of money. But they also have 3,000 branches in those rural counties. Going from East to West: Asia Market – Pacific Ocean – Seattle \_ Big ass area in the middles that is mining, logging, growing fruit, growing wheat, raising cattle and manufacturing \_ Chicago – Ocean – European Market You somehow feel you would be better off without the big ass portion in the middle? Your entire taxable economy is based on those areas ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2011, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-state-taxes-and-expenditures/580399/7 "2011-05-02T02:05:15Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > Yes, there is a great irony. Or not. > [@](#): > > The eastern populations are the ones who object most to welfare. And yet King County recipients only receive $538 per capita. Recipients in the Republican-leaning counties get up to $1,129 per capita. Yes, those are the facts. But those facts alone don’t lead to any conclusions about whether there is a “great irony” here or not. > [@](#): > > Your road analogy doesn’t work here. Care to explain why? That’s really one of the biggest issues here–how to determine whether a person who lives in a county benefits or not from a certain government expenditure. People who live in the more populated areas drive through the less-populated areas from time to time, and they use goods that are trucked through those areas, so having good roads in the less-populated areas benefits people in the more populated areas as well. > [@](#): > > In addition, Seattle is a much more expensive place to live than Yakima; so that ~50% lower payment isn’t worth as much. I don’t doubt that, but that doesn’t show up in these numbers. A person making a higher income pays more tax even though the higher income they make doesn’t go as far. ---
**Author:** ![Cyberhwk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7993a0/32.png) [@Cyberhwk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cyberhwk)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2011, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-state-taxes-and-expenditures/580399/8 "2011-05-02T06:55:12Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > Let’s say the government fixes a road in two different areas. In one area, 200 people live on the road. In the other area, 5 people live on the road. So the numbers show that those 5 people got a much higher bang for their tax buck. What would you say to someone who wanted to build a house out in the sticks and wanted to use taxpayer money to pay for for their road to get there? At what point between 1 person and 5 people does it then become OK? ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2011, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-state-taxes-and-expenditures/580399/9 "2011-05-02T13:55:42Z")
> [@Cyberhwk](#): > > What would you say to someone who wanted to build a house out in the sticks and wanted to use taxpayer money to pay for for their road to get there? At what point between 1 person and 5 people does it then become OK? I have no idea what you are talking about or how it could possibly be relevant to this thread. The purpose of my post was to show why per capita tax benefit numbers are always going to be higher for less populated counties because there are fewer people to spread the tax benefits to. ---
**Author:** ![lawoot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/35a633/32.png) [@lawoot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lawoot)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2011, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-state-taxes-and-expenditures/580399/10 "2011-05-03T06:52:26Z")
As a person who has lived in Western Washington for 17+ years, I most add that the folks in Eastern Washington tend to believe that things are the other way around - that their tax dollars are being wasted on those folks in Seattle/the Puget Sound region, and they don’t believe it when the truth (that we support THEM) is pointed out to them. It’s like a microcosm of the country as a hole - the sparsely populated regions believe that they support the heavily populated regions (and that they are somehow more representative of the ‘true America’). ---
**Author:** ![Critical1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@Critical1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Critical1)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2011, 8:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-state-taxes-and-expenditures/580399/11 "2011-05-03T08:56:43Z")
insert “Coastal States” for King county and the “Bible belt” for the eastern Wa counties and you probably end up with a near identical map, Alaska has a massive tax deficit if you look at it like this. and then Republicans have the nerve to bitch about socialism? I agree that in some ways thats just how it is. In others though it does tend to drive me nuts. one school in eastern wa where the kids had something like 40k spent on each of them in one year was pretty far over the line. for that kind of money you could have them taking classes at home online or shipping them out to another district (or some hybrid of both) for way less money. (from the article) “The tiny Evergreen School District in Stevens County received $36,566 in state funds for each of its seven enrolled students, while Adams County’s Benge School District (a whopping enrollment of nine) topped the charts at $43,924 per student. By comparison, the Seattle School District, much maligned for its administrative overhead and other inefficiencies, managed to get by on only $6,740 in state funding per student, just below the state average, while Skamania County’s Stevenson-Carson School District cost state taxpayers a paltry $5,371 per enrollee.” it would be kinda cool as an experiment to see how things would turn out if we took tax dollars down to the county level across the board. for every dollar you spend on taxes your county gets back that amount less payroll for the government people. I would happily keep things like I90 paid for as its an obvious major route for trade in the state as a whole. but take this experiment to a national level. what happens to Alaska when they no longer receive a ton of cash from the feds every year. I mean its a standard Republican complaint, the Dems are Socialists, its redistribution of wealth, blah blah blah. lol from the comments section on that same article [http://www.taxfoundation.org/UserFiles/Image/Blog/ftsbs-large.jpg](http://www.taxfoundation.org/UserFiles/Image/Blog/ftsbs-large.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2011, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-state-taxes-and-expenditures/580399/12 "2011-05-03T13:43:21Z")
Lawoot and Critical1, I guess you could just ignore my posts above arguing that this effect is just an artifact of how the numbers work and doesn’t show any great irony. But it seems to me that you may want to examine your position (or maybe not). ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2011, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-state-taxes-and-expenditures/580399/13 "2011-05-03T13:51:33Z")
Why not? You’re ignoring that a person receiving assistance in King County gets $538 and a person receiving assistance in Ferry County gets $1,129. That’s a 1:1 ratio that is not averaged by population. You’re illustrating **lawoot** ’s post perfectly. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2011, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-state-taxes-and-expenditures/580399/14 "2011-05-03T16:09:21Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > Why not? You’re ignoring that a person receiving assistance in King County gets $538 and a person receiving assistance in Ferry County gets $1,129. That’s a 1:1 ratio that is not averaged by population. You’re illustrating **lawoot** ’s post perfectly. You still aren’t thinking about this on a very high level. Let me try to help once again. First, you said “person receiving assistance,” but the article said “DHS expenditures.” Those are two very different things, because the DHS spends money on things other than giving assistance to people. One of those things is for infrastructure and employees. Second, let’s say an urban county has 1,000 people and a rural county has 100 people. DHS may have 5 employees in the urban county and 1 in the rural county. So, the costs of those employees (and the building, computers, electricity, etc. that they use) are spread more thinly in the urban county than in the rural county. Third, even if the actual numbers on assistance given are different, this may again be due simply to differences in the populations. Perhaps rural people on welfare have more kids on average than urban people on welfare. ---
**Author:** ![Critical1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@Critical1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Critical1)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2011, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-state-taxes-and-expenditures/580399/15 "2011-05-03T16:19:03Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > Lawoot and Critical1, I guess you could just ignore my posts above arguing that this effect is just an artifact of how the numbers work and doesn’t show any great irony. But it seems to me that you may want to examine your position (or maybe not). I realize the article mentions the “irony” but the op does not. as for the effect being an artifact of how the numbers work? does that even make sense? I suppose of we broke things down even further and looked at tax expenditures on the district level maybe we would see the same thing again. it doesnt change the fact that people who use up the most of the resources are the ones voting down those very same resources. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2011, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-state-taxes-and-expenditures/580399/16 "2011-05-03T16:25:32Z")
> [@Critical1](#): > > I realize the article mentions the “irony” but the op does not. > > as for the effect being an artifact of how the numbers work? does that even make sense? I suppose of we broke things down even further and looked at tax expenditures on the district level maybe we would see the same thing again.\*\* it doesnt change the fact that people who use up the most of the resources are the ones voting down those very same resources.\*\* Yes, it does. It shows that that may not be a “fact” at all. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2011, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-state-taxes-and-expenditures/580399/17 "2011-05-03T16:51:07Z")
This really hurts me to say, but **Rand** is correct here. A lot of the difference in per capita expenditure is due just to population density, not any other factors. Doesn’t mean that Republicans aren’t Evil, of course. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Critical1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@Critical1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Critical1)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2011, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-state-taxes-and-expenditures/580399/18 "2011-05-03T17:13:05Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > Yes, it does. It shows that that may not be a “fact” at all. ok lets try this approach in King county someone on welfare gets 6$ per month to live on. (yes I am making that up) it costs 4$ to get them that money in government wages. in BFE county someone on welfare gets 6$ per month to live on. it costs 10$ in government wages to get them that money. 16$ is more than 10$ the person in BFE county is vastly more likely to vote against the taxes that pay the 6$ extra it costs the state to get them their money. am I wrong? am I nuts? it doesnt matter how you explain it cost are costs, expenditures are expenditures and the people who benefit the most from this “effect” are the ones who disagree with it. if they dont like it then stop giving it to them. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2011, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-state-taxes-and-expenditures/580399/19 "2011-05-03T17:29:06Z")
> [@Critical1](#): > > ok lets try this approach > > in King county someone on welfare gets 6$ per month to live on. (yes I am making that up) > it costs 4$ to get them that money in government wages. > > in BFE county someone on welfare gets 6$ per month to live on. > it costs 10$ in government wages to get them that money. > > 16$ is more than 10$ > the person in BFE county is vastly more likely to vote against the taxes that pay the 6$ extra it costs the state to get them their money. > > am I wrong? am I nuts? it doesnt matter how you explain it cost are costs, expenditures are expenditures and the people who benefit the most from this “effect” are the ones who disagree with it. if they dont like it then stop giving it to them. I don’t think your example shows the effect here. Remember, we are dealing with per capita numbers. It’s more like this: in King county (population 1,000), 100 people on welfare each get 6$ per month to live on. it costs 4$ to get them that money in government wages. in BFE county (population 100), 10 people on welfare get 6$ per month to live on. it costs 1$ in government wages to get them that money. So, in King county, welfare expenditures are $604 for 1,000 people, or 60 cents a person. In BFE county, welfare expenditures are $61 for 100 people, or 61 cents a person. So, per capita, more welfare expenditures flow to BFE count than King county. But the per capita numbers are just an effect of (i) the fixed cost of setting up welfare in a county (i.e., the $1 in BFE county can’t be $0) and (ii) the smaller number of people to spread those fixed costs to. ---
**Author:** ![Critical1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@Critical1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Critical1)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2011, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-state-taxes-and-expenditures/580399/20 "2011-05-03T18:39:58Z")
I fully understand what you are trying to say. but your example is flawed badly, there is no way it would cost more money per person in wages to deliver the services in a highly population dense area like King county than it would out in the sticks, that argument makes no sense at all. you have basically flipped the costs and made them look nearly identical when the reality pretty different. King county 538$ per person on welfare Adams, Ferry, Pend Oreille, and Okanogan Counties consumed per capita DSHS benefits of over 900 now out of assuming each person receives the same benefits (say 500) King co is spending 40$ per person to get them their funds, while the other 4 are spending 400$ for the same end result. yes I realize its not quite that simple, none the less you are talking about a 10 fold difference in costs. your example was a difference of what? 1% and change? not even in the same ball park. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/washington-state-taxes-and-expenditures/580399.md?page=2)