Here’s a whiny piece from the LA Daily News, with at least two questions not asked (nor are they ever asked in pieces like this, or if they are, it’s rare):

President George W. Bush’s lean $2.57 trillion budget plan to beef up the U.S. military comes at the expense of Southern California’s ability to hire more cops, help battered women and clean its drinking water.

The proposed 2006 budget slashes programs considered vital by local officials, including Los Angeles’ Community Oriented Policing program, used to hire more police, and community block grants that fund low-income housing and other social services.

Boo.Hoo.

First unasked question: Why is it the responsibility of a taxpayer in Wyoming to provide clean drinking water for Los Angeles residents? Or pay cops’ salaries?

How did this come to be within the purview of the federal government? These are local issues, that should be locally funded.

On to the next:

Getting California’s fair share of federal tax dollars has long been on the agenda of Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders of both parties, with all five of them scheduled to be in Washington on Feb. 17 to meet with the state’s 53 congressional members to see whether the current situation can be improved.

Estimates currently peg the state’s take at 77 cents for every dollar paid to Washington by California taxpayers, and Democratic leaders in Sacramento said Monday that the president’s budget doesn’t bode well for rectifying that imbalance.

Our intrepid reporters report this as though it’s a perfectly sensible notion that each state should get back exactly as much (if not more–though then that would beg the question of which state wasn’t getting back as much to pay for the overage) as it pays in federal taxes, in the form of federal outlays.

The purpose of federal taxes is not to get them back in benefits to the state in proportion to the taxes paid. In fact, that would be impossible, since just the overhead costs of sending them to Washington and back would dictate that the total amount going back to the states would have to be less than that sent to Washington. It also ignores the funding that’s sent overseas (embassies, military activities, foreign aid, etc.) that can’t be spent in any of the fifty states. So when California insists on getting back all one hundred cents of its federal tax dollar, it’s really saying that at least some, if not all other states should get less.

I’ve got an idea. Instead of state officials lobbying to get the gummint to spend money in their states, howzabout they lobby to reduce federal taxes, so that the people who live in the states have more money to spend on their own states, and don’t have to rely on benefactors in Washington to pay for their police departments and womens’ shelters after skimming their umpteen percent off the top?