Thread by @Autarkh

1/Yet another "I'm tired of hearing" thread.

Republicans claim the #CovidReliefBill is a "blue state bailout"—or one for CA & NY.

Nonsense.

1st, it's disaster relief, not a bailout.

2nd, it provides proportional funding to Blue & Red states based on neutral criteria.

2/USA Today did this useful graphic showing how much each state will receive, grouped by governor's party then by 2020 presidential vote.

As should be evident, this is not just a blue state thing. For example, TX will be one of the largest recipients. usatoday.com/in-depth/news/…

3/If you look at a scatterplot of state/local aid per capita in the #AmericanRescuePlan vs. the 2020 presidential margin, you see there's not a strong correlation and, in any event, states are grouped fairly close to the per-capita average, but low pop states tend to get more.

4/The funding formula is based on need (i.e., a state's share of the national unemployment, modified such that it gets at least a minimum payment based on last year's CARES Act), population, & the existing Community Development Brock Grant (CDBG) criteria.

5/As should be clear this is not a "bailout" exclusively for some states based on party.

Rather, the law apportions fiscal support to state & local gov'ts in a neutral, systematic fashion to promote the objectives of a *national* COVID relief plan by Congress & the President.

6/By my calculation, Blue states get about $11.73B more than they would based on a simple per capita apportionment. For perspective, this is 0.62% of the bill.

Baseless "blue state bailout" charge aside, it's totally in bounds to ask: is this apportionment fair?

Yes—here's why:

7/Over the course of the 5 most recent years with data, 2015 to 2019, the same Blue states paid ~$79.4B more in federal taxes per year than they received in federal spending relative to the national average. Red states have an equal & opposite negative payment balance.

8/Since Red states accepted a disproportionate benefit nearly 6.8x as large for at least those 5 years while they were gaining from it, there's no real basis to object to the smaller/temporally-limited $11.7B on equitable grounds. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

9/Addendum: what I mean by "neutral" is that it isn't purposely discriminating by partisanship.

If you have a funding formula that gives more help to places there's more unemployment (perfectly logical), one side may benefit more, but that's totally incidental.