Who Benefits

Your perception of things is clearly influenced by your environment.

If you look at color coded maps of the last presidential election you see a solid block of red in large areas with blue on the coasts and Illinois.

Many of the red states do not have major metropolitan areas.  They do have cities, an generally the cities show up as little blue islands if you expand the map, but the cities do not dominate those states.

In a city the benefits of Government are most evident.  They may not be as effective as people would want but if you consider the anarchy that would occur in the absence of Government you realize how needed it is.

In the country you can imagine a world without Government, although they generally depend on it more than they realize.

Nevertheless, less Government is appealing and certainly the appeal of lower taxes attracts many.

Its fairly easy for them to believe that a lot of the taxes they pay end up subsidizing undeserving people in those very cities, although the statistics show a different story.

The states that get back less than they pay to the Federal Government are mostly those blue states. You can see the numbers in the article I linked to.

States Net Benefit

The idea that big Government is mostly benefitting the undeserving is of course a myth that is perpetrated.

It really doesn't.