I call that argument bullshit because it so quickly reduces to absurdity. After richer states separate themselves from poorer ones, why wouldn’t richer counties separate from poorer ones? What about neighbourhoods, what about people?
The whole idea of living in a society is that we all work together and that is going to manifest as some people doing more work than others. If you follow dollars then to argue you ought to get more out of it than you put in is to argue that someone else ought to get less, which is stupid; and to argue you ought to get the same amount is that there should be no exchange at all, which is pretty close to assuming the conclusion in favour of secession.
The point is that we shouldn’t be tracking dollars but instead looking at value created. It ought to be the case that everyone gets more out than they put in, and we just don’t have the sophistication to measure that in dollars.
So I think @jlw is exactly right - the point is how the Feds use the money. If they are using the money to arrest and prosecute people for possession of pot in states that have passed laws to allow it, they aren’t creating any value, they are actually obliterating value. If they are using it to apply rules to public schools that make it harder to educate children then again, they are hurting states, not helping them. If they are fixing federally owned infrastructure and implementing a national single payer healthcare system then they are creating considerably more value than is being paid in, enough to share back with everyone.
If we don’t believe that we can pool our money to make everyone better off then we ought to start whittling our own spears to hunt in the jungle. I think the “pay in more than we get back” argument goes down that road. So it’s not that i think it doesn’t happen or that it unreservedly should, I just think counting dollars in vs. dollars out is meaningless.
