Commentary
The federal government has doled out well more than $1 trillion in COVID-19 aid to the states over the last two and a half years. It was money that most red states didn’t need because they kept their economies open. But blue states shut down and begged Congress to give them money to balance their budgets.
When the money arrived, most Republican governors used the funds to retire debt and cut taxes. That was the right thing to do. Since many schools and government agencies closed down during COVID, state agencies needed less money, not more.
But three states in particular got relatively huge checks from Uncle Sam. You can probably guess which three: California, New York, and Illinois….