these numbers make little sense unless you normalize to per-capita. CA and NY are probably still ahead, but less so. Then factor in people living at or below property line and so on, and after a while, it won't seem so unfair to the poor Californians.

Data is a little old, but it does not appear that CA and New York are really ahead- https://www.jsonline.com/story/money/business/2017/04/17/how...

NY and CA are pretty high on that list, but this is more current, and has them even closer to the top. Given that significant tax policy changes have occurred in the interim specifically intended to raise federal taxes on taxpayers from CA, NY, and similar states, that should be unsurprising.

https://www.moneyrates.com/research-center/federal-income-ta...

> Given that significant tax policy changes have occurred in the interim specifically intended to raise federal taxes on taxpayers from CA, NY, and similar states,

Indeed, residents of these states were underpaying federal income taxes, and the law was changed to remove the loophole.

> Indeed, residents of these states were underpaying federal income taxes

More accurately, federal tax policy was previously neutral on state tax policy, and now it has an active thumb on the scale deliberately attempting to push state tax policy toward that favored by less-successful states.

The link I posted used 2016 data, and the link you posted uses 2017 data. The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act mostly impacted 2018 taxes... so I would expect 2018 data to be even more different than the two data sets we have here.

Right, but let’s take California: home of tech companies, Hollywood, big ports, etc.

People in Mississippi are purchasing their products. That money then goes to those companies, employees there, and then the government in taxes. The same goes for Florida and Colorado for vacations, for instance.

They wouldn’t have nearly the same amount of tax revenue if it wasn’t for the other states buying their stuff.

This perfectly describes the Eurozone north/south divide.