How much do federal taxes affect states/cities/towns?

[Killarney]

I'm not familiar with how much of the state's budget comes from state taxes and how much comes from federal aid. Does anyone have a handle on that?

In other words, if my state is laying off police officers and teachers and closing libraries... how much of that is due to the Bush tax cut? Repubs try to say that I can't blame my town's schools falling apart on Bush because schools are funded by the state, but I'm pretty sure that federal funding to the states affects it big time. Looking to see if I'm right or not. Thanks.

[IrateCitizen]

1. It's heavily affected

A significant of all local expenditures are partially financed by state funds. Likewise, a significant number of state programs are partially financed by federal funds.

What this has resulted in is a cut in federal income taxes (a progressive tax) and a hiking of state and local sales and property taxes to make up just a portion of the shortfall. The rest is coming through the cutting of services.

Many people don't realize this when they say "YES" to an income tax cut. The money has to be made up in other areas -- quite often, areas that adversely affect them.

[amazona]

2. to a certain degree it depends on the state

In the South we rely heavily on federal matching funds because the people are relatively poor and state/local taxes can't raise enough money. But I have heard it said that if California withdrew from the union, it would actually keep more money than it gets from the feds. Maybe a Californian could tell if this is true or just an urban legend.

Library closures are an interesting one to me. I noticed that when Bush I was in office, our library had to close down on Sundays, cut hours, etc. The library went to 7 days a week under CLinton. Almost as soon as Bush II was installed...yeah, you guessed it, no more Sundays, the hours were cut...

[loudnclear]

3. Ask your governor! A hell of a lot when it comes to Medicaid

and other programs for the elderly.

[zbdent]

4. Don't a lot of state income taxes get based on the taxable Fed income?

and the fact that the cut to the taxable Fed income means that the state taxable is lower also?

It is in ohio.