Yes, it's federal money sent vs received.
Attaching value to the state being 50.1% democrat vs 50.1% republican in the last presidential election, of course, is absurd.
Since 2/3 of all that money is spent on "programatic" social programs, the spending is automatic. Clearly it would be in the best interest of the populous, affluent, "blue states" (wonder why the dems get the "good guy" color of blue---probably because "red" is too close tot he truth, but I digress) to have their elected representatives disassemble the welfare state, since it clearly hurts them the most.
Of course in terms of dollars sent to dollars received, you really need to remember to look at thew TOTAL dollars here.
NM only have 1.5 million people, and most pay virtually no taxes (being in that bottom 50% of "tax payers"). There are probably more people in NY that make a million bucks a year than there are taxpayers in NM who pay even 1 per capita share per family member. So while NM gets $2 per $1 sent, the total dollars is still a tiny fraction of the welfare dollars sent to NY.
That's the real pattern, small population states vs large population states.
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