• “We don’t need Washington.”
  • “We are independent, self-reliant.”
  • “We are carrying the country.”

I. First Theft: Lure Without All of the Gains

Texas and other RED states like to boast: “We are the land of business freedom, low taxes, and booming growth.”
Companies move in, waving banners of job creation. Politicians cut ribbons and call it proof of their genius.

But look closer, and the shine turns hollow. Those tax breaks come at a cost. They starve the public coffers—schools, hospitals, roads, and citizens are left scraping by.

Texas presents itself as a model of economic freedom with low corporate taxes and business incentives—drawing companies away from high-tax blue states like California and New York. But this appeal isn’t creating additional value—it’s redistributing it. Blue states lose both economic activity and the tax contributions that could have funded schools, infrastructure, or social services.

II. Second Theft: Federal Redistribution Funded by Blue States

When Texas offers lavish breaks, it is not inventing prosperity. It is stealing it—pulling corporations and jobs away from other states, especially high-tax blue states that maintain stronger public services.

It is like a store that cuts its prices below cost, then brags about more customers. But the shortfall has to be paid somehow, and the ones who pay are the residents who no longer have the revenue for services.

Here’s the twist: when Texas runs short on revenue, it leans on federal support—Medicaid, disaster relief, infrastructure funds—much of which comes from the federal pool formed disproportionately by blue state contributions.

  • In 2022, California contributed about $83 billion more in federal taxes than it received back TIMETIME+6PolitiFact+6California Budget & Policy Center+6.
  • In contrast, Texas received approximately $71 billion more from the federal government than it contributed PolitiFact.
  • Massively affecting the balance are programs like disaster relief and Medicaid expansion, where red states—including Texas—benefit significantly despite sending relatively less in.

This means Texas effectively:

  1. Privatizes economic gains via tax incentives.
  2. Then socializes the burdens—drawing on federal funds mostly generated by blue states.

III. The Systemic Imbalance

Here comes the deeper irony. After cutting its own revenue stream, Texas turns to Washington when its citizens fall behind. Federal government programs—Medicaid, disaster relief, farm subsidies, infrastructure funds—step in to fill the gap.

Where does that money come from?
From the same blue states Texas undercut in the first place. States like California, New York, and New Jersey pay far more into the federal pool than they get back. Texas, meanwhile, gets more than it sends.

So the cycle is complete:

  1. Texas steals jobs from blue states with tax bribes.
  2. Then Texas steals again—drawing from the federal redistribution funded mostly by those same blue states.

Double stealing.

  • 2023 data show: 31% of federal disbursements go to the four largest states, including Texas—with California, New York, and Florida also prominent —but contributions to the federal fund are apportioned differently smartasset.com+4axios.com+4TIME+4TIME.
  • This structural asymmetry deepens financial inequities, with states like California paying a net share, while Texas enjoys a net benefit.

IV. The Politics of Pretend

Yet the political narrative flips the truth. Texas leaders say:

  • “We don’t need Washington.”
  • “We are independent, self-reliant.”
  • “We are carrying the country.”

But the numbers betray them. Without federal transfer, Texas’s low-tax illusion would collapse. Its citizens are held afloat by money piped in from the very states it mocks.

V. Traveller’s Judgment

I see a land proud of its shadow,
yet its roots drink from another’s well.
It steals twice: once with gifts to the rich,
once again with hands outstretched to Washington.
And still it calls itself righteous.
But the truth is simple:
without the blue, the red would run dry.

VI. Epilogue

Texas is not unique—it is only the loudest. Other “low-tax” states play the same game. But Texas embodies the double theft with pride: a system that privatizes its gains, then socializes its losses onto the rest of the union.

Until this is named and faced, the cycle continues:
Blue states fund their citizens and their neighbors.
Red states claim independence while cashing the checks.

And Texas calls it freedom.