Here's a brain twister for you.

Folks who are wary of so-called Big Government tend to live in the red-state South and often think the West Coast is a socialist nanny state.

While California's taxes aren't going to win over pro-business patriots anytime soon, it turns out we are quite independent of Uncle Sam.

A new analysis of 2015’s States Most & Least Dependent on the Federal Government by personal finance site WalletHub concludes that the Golden State “is the sixth least federally dependent state,” according to a statement.

The site says it looked at “the return on taxes paid to the federal government; 2) federal funding as a percentage of state revenue; 3) the number of federal employees per capita and 4) the number of civilian nondefense federal employees per capita.”

We had a low return of 68 cents on the dollar when it came to our federal tax contributions, WalletHub found. Federal funding is slightly more than one-fourth (26.44 percent) of our state revenue. And we had low numbers of federal employees per capita.

In other words, California doesn't rely too much on Big Government to get along.

“It is true that some states receive a far higher return on their federal income tax contributions than others,” WalletHub says.

Credit: WalletHub

Credit: WalletHub

The most federally independent states were New Jersey (first), Delaware (second), and Illinois (third). The most Washington-dependent states include New Mexico (at the bottom), Mississippi (second from the bottom), Kentucky (third), Alabama (fourth) and Montana (fifth).

Talk about biting the hand that feeds you. Indeed, WalletHub concludes, “Blue states are less dependent on the federal government.”

Now go tell Cletus (aka Ted Nugent) he should bow down to Washington, D.C. (We kid).

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