The exit polls from the South Carolina Republican primary show that a whopping 92 percent of voters are “dissatisfied or angry” with the way the federal government is working. But the federal government does a lot for the state: For every $1 South Carolinians paid in federal taxes in 2015 the state received $5.38 in federal funding. That’s a higher return on taxpayer investment than any other state in the union. All in all, finance website WalletHub lists South Carolina as the state tenth-most dependent on the federal government.
But perhaps the issue isn’t so much what the federal government does, but the fact that it exists at all. Earlier this week polls showed 30 percent of South Carolina Republicans wish the South had won the Civil War.