The gap is covered in about half the states. The other half don't like Obama so they refused the free money from the feds to cover the gap for their citizens. Can't make this stuff up.

"free money"

Its not "free money", its taxes paid by taxpayers. There is no "free money" in government.

No, the money that was refused did not reduce anyone's taxes, so your statement is false. Obviously, expenditure has to come from somewhere, but when the government operates in a deficit, marginal spending comes from debt, not taxes.

Debt taken out by the government has to be paid by the tax payers in both principal and interest. There is no free money. Not spending additional federal money is a virtue not a problem.

> Debt taken out by the government has to be paid by the tax payers in both principal and interest.

That's not actually true, particularly, there is no necessary reason why, as long as economic growth can be maintained over the long term (even if that's not always the case over shorter terms) a country can't sustainably have an ever-increasing debt balance, without ever paying any of it off other than by issuing new debt.

Even if it was true, if government deficit spending increases stimulate economic expansion, the tax funds to pay for the spending can be produced by the spending.

That's just the kind of thinking that hasn't worked for anyone yet. It didn't work for Rome or anyone since. The collapse always comes when the public coffers are drained.

"if government deficit spending increases stimulate economic expansion"

Which it didn't and hasn't - the best times in our economy were when the government spent and taxed less (e.g. 1946 & 1948 fiscal changes).

"the tax funds to pay for the spending can be produced by the spending"

No, they cannot and that's just twisted logic - you cannot spend your way out of debt

> No, they cannot and that's just twisted logic - you cannot spend your way out of debt

If that was true, corporate finance would be a lot different.

Which company continued to spend money in excess of its revenues and took out debt to compensate then somehow without increasing revenue above spending paid off its debt?

Increasing revenue -- and the source of that increase -- was part of what I pointed to. So your question is irrelevant.

And who pays this increased revenue, the tax payer - so your chain of comments to contradict my original point is untrue

> And who pays this increased revenue, the tax payer

But not out of funds that they would have had without the expenditure. So they have literally given up nothing.

You must have missed how those stimulus packages actually worked or have some view of economics that isn't a reality. Debt has an upper limit and revenue increases mean taxpayers pay it. Stimulus doesn't create any wealth and hasn't worked. There is not one concrete case of what you describe working in history.