http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/08/americas-fiscal-union?page=2
I've got several questions about the United States, obviously prompted by the eurozone debate over fiscal union:
1. Why, unlike in Europe, are voters in wealthier US states like Minnesota, New Jersey, Illinois, Connecticut and New York relatively unperturbed by fiscal transfers to poorer states like Alabama, Mississippi, Montana, and West Virginia? Has this always been the case, including during the American constitutional debates of 1787-1793?
2. Does the fiscal union impose spending discipline on the poorer states? Do federal transfers come with strings attached, i.e. federal control over state spending?
3. Do the corporations based in the richer states which support these transfers have any interests other than maintaining these markets for their goods and services?
It seems ironic that the states which most benefit from federal handouts consistently support the Republicans and are ideologically hostile to "Big Government", while the opposite is true for the richer states whose taxes are funnelled to the poorer states. But poor rural states and regions generally tend to be more conservative than more economically advanced ones with large urban working class populations.