[jessaustin]

This money transfer, about which urbanites complain regularly and in numerous contexts, is what one would expect given well-known legislative dynamics. Rural legislators represent constituents who are mostly against expanded benefits spending (you might say that these constituents' preferences are against their interests, but that doesn't change those actual observed preferences). In order for rural legislators to support new benefits against the wishes of their constituents, they must be bribed by receiving an outsize share.

I think this redrawing of states would end that dynamic decisively, which maybe is what urban people want.