Found an interesting article on the taker states

[kentauros]

15. What's more telling is the part of the article that you -did not- quote:

Alternatively, we could use the "state dependency" map as an opportunity to reflect on a different paradox—the longstanding role of the far-away federal government as an agent of community. Because of federal programs, people in places like South Carolina and Mississippi are getting a helping hand not from their neighbors a few blocks away or in the next county over, but from residents of Delaware, Minnesota, Illinois, and Nebraska. Whether you like that idea depends, in part, on how you personally reconcile the tension between two long-cherished, core American values—our passion for individualism and our regard for community—and whether you see "community" as encompassing the whole country.

That's a far more interesting thing to think about (though perhaps less viscerally satisfying) than which states are moochers or freeloaders and which are getting fleeced.

In other words, we all belong to the [font color="blue"]United States of America[/font], and not the [font color="red"]Independent (Everyone For Themselves!) States of America[/font].