[roenxi]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but California is the US's highest spending state [0] with a budget of around 200 billion. Its entire budget is smaller than the US Federal government's deficit (measured in single digit trillions).

The reason everyone cares about federal elections is because there are earth-shattering amounts of money involved. The resources that get consumed have to come from somewhere.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._state_budgets

[refurb]

That money is mostly entitlement spending.

You can change a lot of the states level that has nothing to do with entitlements.

[akvadrako]

It's about half entitlements, 27% Medic* + 22% SS, and this percentage will increase quickly.

But that's still $3T for other stuff in average years. Plus they just passed $2T of extra one-off spending for the second time in a year.

That means the Federal government is basically taking all the spending power of the nation and then redistributing it, giving it enormous power compared to the states.