Does anybody else see headlines like the following, from WPRI, and think it sounds kind of like our state is on life support?

‘The other shot in the arm that Rhode Islanders needed’: State receiving $40M in federal funds to combat hunger crisis

Wouldn’t it be great if our state were so healthy and prosperous that we didn’t need handouts from the federal government?  Does anybody even think that way anymore or have those sorts of values?

If so, you’d never know it from the reporting or political discourse in our state.  It’s just an assumed state of nature that the federal government ought to take money from taxpayers (whether directly, as a tax, or indirectly by printing money) to distribute to no-longer-sovereign states so that the people never begin to wonder whether the political class is to blame for our descent into dependency.