Other People's Money

What if I told you there was a place that received far more money from its state government than its residents paid out in taxes? Wouldn’t you like to live there?

Well, welcome to Northern New York.

As hard as it may be to believe, North Country residents benefit from large amounts of other people’s money. Without it, the effects of the draining of dollars from the region mentioned in the previous post would be unsustainable.

The myth goes something like this; Northern New York sends a lot of its hard earned money down state to pay for other people’s roads, subways, and welfare. Whole political campaigns have been built on this premise.

The reality is that our way of life in Northern New York is heavily subsidized by money from other New Yorkers. Woe to us if the good folks in the suburbs of Yonkers, Albany, Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo ever rise up and say no.

This was made clear a few years back with an article in the Watertown Daily Times entitled, “State Pays More Than it Takes, North Country is Net Gainer”. According to this article North Country counties collectively received four times as much money from New York State as was paid by residents in taxes. At the time, Franklin County received nearly eleven times as much from New York State as it paid in taxes, St. Lawrence County received over four times as much as it paid in taxes, Lewis County received over three times more from the state, and Jefferson County received 2.5 times more than it paid. Money from other New Yorkers contributed to our town roads, schools, law enforcement, social services, and corrections, and many other services and institutions. While the Watertown Times article covered four counties, it is safe to assume a similar situation exists for the whole region.

And this does not take into consideration the huge amounts of federal money that comes into the region.

Frankly, it is hard to imagine what life in Franklin, Jefferson, Lewis and St. Lawrence counties would be if we could only rely on our own tax revenues. State contributions to the region are a real windfall that needs to be put to the best possible use. One way to do this is to find ways that to keep it from so quickly leaving the region again.