States that could survive as nations if they seceded from the USA

[kphoger]

Texas is still a taker state (gets $1.09 for every $1.00 it spends), so I don't see why it would leave.

https://mises.org/blog/which-states-rely-most-federal-spending

Interestingly in direct contradiction to the video I posted up-thread.

[TravelingBethelite]

None. The costs of

• Establishing a military and border controls
• Establishing diplomatic and trade relations with other countries
• Changeover to a new currency
• Assumption of that state's portion of the national debt
• Lost economic production due to new trade barriers with other states

Would all be enough to immediately drain even the wealthiest state's coffers.

A related problem to your #4-if it's not immediately on a body of water, the 'state' has to transport its goods across an international border to a port.

[kkt]

It depends what kind of treaties they make with the United States or the other states if the U.S. is disolved.  Quite possible to have a treaty guaranteeing free transport of goods to and from port.

[GCrites]

Schwarzenegger once said in a speech here that Ohio and California are the only states that could survive on their own.

[brad2971]

Texas is still a taker state (gets $1.09 for every $1.00 it spends), so I don't see why it would leave.

https://mises.org/blog/which-states-rely-most-federal-spending

Interestingly in direct contradiction to the video I posted up-thread.

Note the caveat in the article after posting the figures. Our federal government itself takes in about $1.00 for ever 80 cents it pays in taxes. Therefore, Texas and California (at about $1.18 listed) are most certainly net contributors to the federal coffers.

Though I will say this: If you ever want to know what technologically advanced oil production can do for a state, look at North Dakota as net contributor. As recently as 11 years ago, ND was very much a welfare queen.

[jeffandnicole]

Should a state wish to secede, I wonder how many of their people would suddenly realize they now need passports to leave their 'country' to visit a neighboring state.

I wonder how many will blame the TSA for a false sense of security at airports, failing to realize the TSA is an American security force, and not involved in their little country. (It's common for Americans to go to another country and complain about the TSA security agents there...whom have nothing to do with the TSA.)

Well.. An interesting fact.
I happened to talk to a high school kid who mentioned an interesting situation in their class:
At some point teacher asked how many students were in NYC (which is 3 hour drive from us, or $70 Greyhound round-trip)  - and about half of the class never went there.
How many of you did fly? - just that kid.

Which basically tells me that if things come to popular vote, there will be A LOT of people who don't care about travel - since they don't travel themselves.

I lived no more than 2 hours from NYC my entire life, but was never up there until after college.

A large percentage of those living in NJ work in PA or NY. It's not just travelling...it can be simple commuting that's affected.

[Max Rockatansky]

Off the top of my head just Florida since they pretty much have all the water resources to supply irrigation and farming.  They actually mine the hell out of phosphate so there is actually a mineral resource that pretty much ensures trade aside from farm products.  I would like to say Texas also but the water rights get dicey at best. Alaska and Hawaii would be possibilities also but neither has the tax payer base to be first world.

[freebrickproductions]

(It is possible for a state to be its own dictatorship. Democracy really didn't come to the Deep South until the Voting Rights Act was passed, so I'd say those states were practically dictatorships before then.)

Alabama still pretty much is a "dictatorship", since we haven't had a Democrat governor since the Republicans went conservative...

[sparker]

Not that I think it'll ever happen, but if California were to go its own way, the water situation would likely be addressed by massive desalinization.  While extremely expensive, California is also a relatively "high tax" state; the per capita cost of a delsalinization plant would be at least absorbable (if not easily so).  If such a plant could be located in more brackish waters such as upper Suisun Bay or elsewhere in the Delta, the byproducts/waste could be lessened.  (OK, we can sell it as "sea salt" to Whole Foods, Sprouts, and other such specialty food stores!)

[Max Rockatansky]

Not that I think it'll ever happen, but if California were to go its own way, the water situation would likely be addressed by massive desalinization.  While extremely expensive, California is also a relatively "high tax" state; the per capita cost of a delsalinization plant would be at least absorbable (if not easily so).  If such a plant could be located in more brackish waters such as upper Suisun Bay or elsewhere in the Delta, the byproducts/waste could be lessened.  (OK, we can sell it as "sea salt" to Whole Foods, Sprouts, and other such specialty food stores!)

The problem would be that everything is would be tied to exporting crops out of San Joaquin Valley.  That means that more and more water going to be diverted to agriculture than it would even be now.  The rest of the state is largely white collar and companies won't want to stick around if they are getting crazy high (higher than today) taxes to pay for farms outside cities.  I love those signs in San Joaquin Valley that insinuate that more "dams" need to be built and not high speed rail....it's like the farmers don't get it that the water sources in the mountains are pretty much tapped out.

[sparker]

I was considering that desalinization would serve as an alternate means to supply general-purpose water, not specifically agriculture.  It's probably a political/economic certainty that agricultural interests, especially in the Valley, would request (more likely demand) a share of any desalinized water more or less in proportion to current allocations; a facility located at or near an agricultural base of operations (i.e., my suggestion of a Suisun/Delta location) would probably prompt growers to push for direct output into the waterway system serving their places of operation.  Thus, the  locations of desalinization facilities will need to be reconsidered -- if any locations more conducive to urban distribution could be found, environmental issues, not to mention the NIMBY factor, would almost certainly come into play.  OK, I've prattled on enough here -- the bottom line is that while technically possible, implementing broad-based desalinization in California won't be simple by any means!   

[cpzilliacus]

OK, I've prattled on enough here -- the bottom line is that while technically possible, implementing broad-based desalinization in California won't be simple by any means!

If the desalinization process is powered by nuclear power, it could be done very well even in or near L.A. or San Francisco, because they  have zero emissions.

The intake for such a plant and especially the outflowing brine should probably be on the open ocean (and definitely not in San Francisco Bay). 

[cpzilliacus]

Obviously, Texas. It's big enough, has several large cities, and has an economy that could sustain independence.

Better to just cede Texas back to Mexico.

I also think Florida could. The tourism industry would continue to thrive if they did not enact ridiculous entry requirements.

I doubt it, given the  large population of elderly people. Especially if Social Security, Medicare and Medicare Part D (which are funded by federal taxes collected nationwide) are turned-off. Given Florida's love of low taxes, I doubt that the state would want to impose a Florida version of FICA and payroll taxes on all workers from Pensacola to Key West.

[cpzilliacus]

Off the top of my head just Florida since they pretty much have all the water resources to supply irrigation and farming.

Not if half of the state ends up under seawater due to climate change.

[jeffandnicole]

To show the affects of climate change, go back to news stories from the early 2000's and 1990's. Many of them stated our coastal regions would be under water by now. 15 or 20 years later, and there's absolutely no change. Some of them still try saying in just 10 or 20 years there's gonna be major changes. Don't count on it.

[Otto Yamamoto]

I don't know about NY as an independent country, but NYC as it's own state could work. Maybe if we weren't sending all our $ to Albany, we could finally finish the 2 Av Subway line. 😝

XT1585

[hbelkins]

Military - state can claim a "fair share" of existing military. Or, better, seize whatever is on their territory (think WA or ND getting 30% of US nuclear weapons)
Changeover to a new currency can be extremely profitable, depending on what happens with existing US dollars in the state.
Being smartass can end up with no federal debt obligations.

Which means Kentucky could claim Fort Knox's gold and enact a gold standard currency.

[hbelkins]

Silly talk as we approach 240 years of independence.  It was tried before, the first seven of which formed a combine.  Four more joined and two more had parallel governments on both sides.  The experiment ended with more than 620,000 dead and 500,000 injured or maimed out of a total population of 30 million.  It was a very long time ago and no one alive today lived through it.  It is considered by many as the first modern war.  It should not be repeated despite having a huge flag of the Army of Northern Virginia flying on a very tall pole on northbound Interstate 75 in middle Georgia with a billboard next to it with the advertisement "#Secede."

Surely to God the federal government would not be so stupid as to again go to war to keep a state that no longer wanted to be a part of the Union. I still contend that the Civil War was a mistake. The federal government should have let the Confederate states go. Why keep someone in a relationship that does not want to be in a relationship?

[Max Rockatansky]

Off the top of my head just Florida since they pretty much have all the water resources to supply irrigation and farming.

Not if half of the state ends up under seawater due to climate change.

Last I checked Key West, Miami and the Everglades are still there.   I've been hearing that horror story my entire life...besides if you have a good look on US 27 in Highlands County there is shoreline sand dunes at 170 feet above sea level.  Some point not too long ago geologically it must have been warmer...hell the Keys were a coral reef.

To show the affects of climate change, go back to news stories from the early 2000's and 1990's. Many of them stated our coastal regions would be under water by now. 15 or 20 years later, and there's absolutely no change. Some of them still try saying in just 10 or 20 years there's gonna be major changes. Don't count on it.

Exactly, come get me when the 2012 style disasters are well underway.

[Desert Man]

CA has more of a chance being partitioned into 3 or 4 new smaller states than secession from the US. There would be the states of CA proper (capital: Sacramento) with state boundaries north of Ukiah and Yuba City, and south of Stockton and San Jose. Then there's Central CA (possible capital: Fresno) with it's state line north of Delano and Paso Robles. Southern CA (most likely capital: San Bernardino, not even the 10th largest in the region). And the remainder Jefferson (the region's largest city either Chico or Redding, 100,000 plus each). The former state of CA could have 2 new counties I know of: Northern L.A. and Eastern Riverside (county seats either Lancaster or Palmdale, and Indio or Palm Springs). The San Fernando Valley attempted secession from L.A. in the early 2000s, so how about another US city with over a million residents?

[vdeane]

I don't know about NY as an independent country, but NYC as it's own state could work. Maybe if we weren't sending all our $ to Albany, we could finally finish the 2 Av Subway line. 😝

XT1585

Hate to break it to you, but the MTA is a financial black hole fueled by corruption.  If anything, the subway line would take even LONGER if you were an independent state.  Meanwhile, upstate, we can't even keep our roads from deteriorating because the state is spending all its money on things like the LaGuardia rebuild, and things like uber are illegal here because the NYC taxi lobby doesn't want the competition, our exit numbers are still sequential because of you guys, and our speed limit still just 65.  It was even a huge battle just to get electric bikes.

[Otto Yamamoto]

I don't know about NY as an independent country, but NYC as it's own state could work. Maybe if we weren't sending all our $ to Albany, we could finally finish the 2 Av Subway line. 😝

XT1585

Hate to break it to you, but the MTA is a financial black hole fueled by corruption.  If anything, the subway line would take even LONGER if you were an independent state.  Meanwhile, upstate, we can't even keep our roads from deteriorating because the state is spending all its money on things like the LaGuardia rebuild, and things like uber are illegal here because the NYC taxi lobby doesn't want the competition, our exit numbers are still sequential because of you guys, and our speed limit still just 65.  It was even a huge battle just to get electric bikes.

Electric bikes are still illegal here. Not that that stops anyone. And as I recall at least part of IH 95 still has mile based junction numbers


XT1585

[Otto Yamamoto]

Blame Count for the LaGuardia rebuild. And the MTA would be a cluster spork regardless.

XT1585

[Otto Yamamoto]

Coumo. Goddam Otto correct.

XT1585

[Otto Yamamoto]

http://www.theverge.com/2016/6/3/11852940/uber-subprime-auto-loans-drivers-xchange also Uber is a plague. You can have it.

XT1585