Quote:
Originally Posted by McBane
While it may not be accurate to say that Philly subsidizes the State, I do think it is accurate that overall, the Philly metro area does.
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How so?
I'm really wondering what people are defining as 'subsidizing' here.
Philadelphia City/County absolutely is the economic engine for the region... and so it fully makes sense that its suburban counties (as well as other PA counties) fund a significant portion of its services.
The biggest chunk of state tax revenue is obviously going to come from the areas of the state with the highest populations... they're putting more into the pot.
But this notion that state tax revenue dollars from Philadelphia and surrounding counties are
subsidizing the rest of the state is just fallacy.
Let's take the greatest "taker" county in the state, Forest County... roughly
13% of its 2022 county budget is made up of state and federal allocations. Now take the suburban Philly counties, Bucks, Montgomery, Chester, you know, the big "giver" counties... what are their state/federal portions of their 2022 county budgets?
35-50%
35-50% of county budget coming from public funds is a hell of a lot more of a subsidy than 13% is.