Measuring State Policy Differences States have a great many policy responsibilities on which they differ dramatically. Education, welfare, highways, health and hospitals, corrections, and natural resources top the list when state policy is measured by expenditures. Another way of making the state expenditure data comparable for each state is to focus on spending per person or per recipient in the states. As with spending priorities, states differ substantially in their tax policies. Data on state taxes is available in The Book of the States and CQ's State Fact Finder .
States do more than just pass budgets with taxing and spending policies.
They also pass laws affecting our economic, social, political, and personal lives in a variety of ways. A more indirect, but sometimes effective and always fascinating, way of ascertaining particular state policies and laws is to consult the growing information available on the web. There are numerous socioeconomic variables that may account for the differences among your three state's policies. Another source of statistical information about states is available through State Files of the County and City Data Book . Two sources mentioned above, CQ's State Fact Finder and The Rating Guide to Life in America's Fifty States detail state data on a variety of subjects, including population, economies, geography, government, federal impacts, education, health, crime and law enforcement, transportion, welfare, environment, natural resources, resource conservation, racial equality, female equality, and housing.