Posted on 12/22/2016 7:20:50 AM PST by rhett october
Secession in the United States has been attempted before. It ended in the Civil War with the southern states being forbidden from seceding.
Texas has talked about it. California is talking about it now and even says it has its own embassy in Moscow, Russia (this according to secession supporters and not state officials). But what would an independent California country actually be like?
All we can do is look at current California policies and political leanings and attempt to project how they might operate as a country on their own.
California's state government has a reputation for big spending and they live up to that with the highest in the nation welfare payout totaling $44.8 billion for the year 2016 according to USGovernmentSpending.com. The nearest state to California's yearly welfare payout is New York at $18.5 billion. Most states are less than half of New York.
On top of that, California is referred to as a "sanctuary city," meaning that they do not enforce federal immigration laws, so people who have entered the United States illegally and who are not citizens may go to California without anyone looking into them or trying to send them back to where they came from.
In fact, California goes beyond being a sanctuary city. They don't just allow illegal immigrants to live in their state without any deterrent, they actually provide taxpayer-funded benefits to them. Some benefits provided to illegal immigrants by California taxpayers include in-state college tuition, driver's licenses, and state funded healthcare for illegals under the age of 19 with a bill in the works to provide it for older undocumented adults as well. They even allow people without legal status to obtain law and other professional licenses.
According to a comment made to the L.A. Times by Joe Guzzardi, spokesman for the group of Californians for Population Stability, "Citizens are out of the loop on these immigration bills," said Joe Guzzardi, spokesman for the group Californians for Population Stability. "I question whether or not any of them would have passed on the ballot, especially the ones dealing with outlays of taxpayer money."
So a new country with handouts for illegals along with such lax laws, if any, concerning immigration would be an absolute magnet for illegals already in the United States who are looking for friendlier turf. This is especially true when thinking that the handouts might become more and the laws might become even weaker or nonexistent without pressure from the rest of the United States.
But here's the catch. President-elect Trump has already proposed ending federal funding for states who ignore federal laws. So California could be financially on its own either way. And that's where all of the big spending falls apart.
California is not just using its own state taxpayers for giveaways to illegals, it's getting a huge amount from the federal government, who gets the money from taxpayers in states other than California. According to Breitbart, of California’s $252.5 billion in total estimated government spending for fiscal year 2015, the U.S. federal government provided $93.6 billion, or 37 percent. That works out to a stunning $6,451 for every man, woman and child in the state of California.
So one thing is for sure, a new country that was formerly a state known as California will be operating on 37 percent less income but a colossal amount of new expenses since it would now be its own federal government. And then with the influx of illegals wanting to board the gravy train to the country of California, well it could easily be Venezuela's socialism wreck all over again with more people living off of the taxpayers than actually being taxpayers. And that would send taxes to the moon since they are already through the roof with California currently having the highest state income tax in the United States. They'd have to add a new federal income tax of their own on top of that and then the mass exodus of businesses and other taxpayers would begin.
California would become a country of people who have no citizenship in the United States or the new country of California. Would California, then, automatically make those people citizens of its new country? And if so, would that make them taxpayers? If citizenship automatically made them taxpayers, the new country might run into an interesting and ironic problem since a number of those non-citizens would not want to become citizens of the new country either in order to avoid the associated taxes. And since California now seems to pride itself on welcoming illegal immigrants without making them become citizens, well, they would have no way of solving that problem. They would have people who want all the benefits of citizenship but none of the responsibility or expense. Such a situation would bankrupt their new country.
And the country of California would, ironically, find itself in the same position that the United States is in right now. Might they then be forced to end government giveaways to illegals or even deport them? Or, if the giveaways were ended, would non-citizens leave on their own?
It could be a fascinating change of course for the current sanctuary state who would likely find that it can't survive as a sanctuary country. Assuming such a country still had free elections, it could be that their people, made poor by the massive taxes that would be required to attempt to keep the country financially alive, would elect their own nationalist leader who proposed secure borders and immigration laws.
No one knows the future, but what a country of California might end up looking like could be much different than its current sanctuary state status and big spending, liberal government ways. Out of necessity, it might become something even to the right of the country from whom its wanting to secede. That's as good a guess as anyone's.
You see this argument all the time saying Blue states contribute more than they receive. Red States don't. It's not exactly true.
It's not that California pays more in federal taxes than they receive, it's more taxes are paid from California than they receive back..
There's a significant difference.
For example, if I buy an iphone in Alabama that was manufactured in China and shipped through Florida, since Apple's headquarters are in California, even though that iPhone never set foot in California, California gets credit for the taxes paid on the profits from the sale.
Likewise a movie could be filmed in Houston and since the studio is in Los Angles, California gets credit.
So basically such statistics on who pays what are meaningless. If California left, even if Apple & others kept their company World headquarters in California, they would open United States Headquarters in some other states and pay and US taxes there.
But when California starts talking about it because of who got elected as president, the same bunch of loonies say, "Hmmmm...now maybe this could work."
“On what do you base this conclusion?”
History. The last time it happened, we had a civil war.
“The illegal immigration issue is not the same as the slavery issue.”
No one said it was - and the civil war was NOT about slavery. It was about secession. There was no civil war under secession began. Do you not know the history of the United States?
“Slavery was morally wrong. Illegal immigration is morally wrong.”
You’re missing the point. SECESSION LEADS TO CIVIL WAR. It doesn’t matter what leads to the secession. Slavery, illegal immigration, Star Wars VIII, dropping the designated hitter rule, it doesn’t matter.
“But ending slavery and ending illegal immigration are not really comparable.”
Your comment is pointless since no one was claiming there were comparable. But civil war over secession is exactly comparable to civil war over secession. See how that works?
Not actually true. The "study" the Leftists love to cite on this does not include all the money that goes into CA as part of the Defense budget. there is quite a bit of spending hidden in the Defense budget that is only marginally connected to Defense.
California is the seventh largest economy in the world, and one of the ‘least dependent’ states on Federal funds; if it stopped paying Federal taxes and collected that revenue for itself, it might make a go of it.
Neah. But I’d like to see ‘em try.
Don’t be a concern troll. Take a look North of the border. Québec has threatened separation for decades. Because of decades of socialist governments in that Province, businesses have fled Québec. The Feds (using MY tax dollars) continue to bankroll their annual deficits to the tune of approximately $8 billion last year. Eventually, the younger people left the Province, only to discover that the ‘big, bad, h’Anglish ROC (rest is of Canada)’ was not so big and bad. Some have returned with the news, but most have left, only returning for Christmas and vacations. Eventually, the die hard socialist separatists, who are becoming quite long in the tooth, will meet their maker (though, being atheistic socialists, it won’t be a positive experience).
Cannabisfornia sounds very much like Québec. Just keep giving ‘em money and they’ll remain. Eventually, hopefully the adults will regain control of the Legislature and some of the stupid spending and regulations will cease. If PEOTUS DJT follows through in his commitment to cut Fed funding to States that disobey federal laws, Cannabisfornia will soon toe the line.
Can you try to not be so obnoxious?
You did not even try to address the salient point. The US of the early 21st is very different politically and economically than the US of the mid 19th century. Lincoln recognized that the North and South could not exist separately. The South was either unwilling or unable to recognize that it couldn’t exist without northern industry. Obviously there were other proximate causes but we don’t have the space here to analyze them all.
In this case, why would the secession of California lead to a civil war? Try to use reason and cite some evidence. Simply saying that a secession effort led to The Civil War is not an argument.
Actually it isn’t a bad idea to talk things out. Civil war isn’t the worst possible outcome if it reforms the collective thinking. There is no way California’s policies are sustainable, and they should not be sustained by the rest of the states.
A caveat: Calif would not have to pay for it’s own defense. Monroe Doctrine.
No foreign aid to a seceded California. Or any California.
Actually that is California’s citizens who pay it.
Are you kidding? Once the price of food quadruples there would be hordes of commies invading like locusts!
If California secedes from the USA, does the “Inland Empire” secede from California?
This may sound weird, but CA secession may very well be the road to fixing CA.
If they tried to seceed, many Californians would NOT want to leave the good ole USA. If the CA gov’t woke up one day and said “you are no longer citizens of the United States” I believe many Californians would try to leave....mostly the tax paying ones.
I do not believe CA could stay afloat without the working taxpayers. Thus they would have to forbid them from leaving. That would in essence start a hot war in the state, which may be one of the only ways to bring this once great state back to its former glory (before the commies took it over).
This could become a hilarious negotiation—Rodney Dangerfield redux—”Please, you take Riverside—and San Bernardino” :-)
Remove the taxes paid by Hollywood & it’s members, and see what the numbers look like Also the professional athletes.
IF you have a state of 30million people, of which 11 or more million are illegal invaders, then you do not have everyday people paying that kind of income tax to the Feds.
Let the people who want to secede...let them secede. We keep the land, assets, etc.
I’m sure Mexico will welcome them...even North Korea.
If they did secede, I wonder if the liberal loons out there would even permit California to have a military.
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