It’s true that the deduction is an indirect federal subsidy to state and local governments, and allows jurisdictions that impose high taxes to “export a portion of their tax burden to the rest of the nation,” according to the Tax Policy Center. But deductible state and local tax is just one type of federal assistance, and states that benefit the most from the provision actually rely less on Washington over all.

The deduction is claimed by taxpayers in every state, though larger percentages of taxpayers in the Northeast and the West benefit from it.

About 46 percent of tax returns in Maryland — the state with the highest share in the country — used the provision and averaged almost $13,000 each in deductions in 2015, an analysis by the Government Finance Officers Association shows. On the other end, only 17 percent of tax returns in South Dakota took advantage of the provision, and averaged $6,000 each in deductions.

Taxpayers in two states, California and New York, claimed more than 32 percent of the total deduction in 2013, the Tax Policy Center estimated.

This alone does not mean that Indiana is bankrolling New York. Larger states, like New York and California, are getting bigger subsidies through the state and local tax deduction “because they’re paying substantially more in federal taxes,” said Kim Rueben, an author of the Tax Policy Center report.