I would love to bust that state up. It has too much say in the presidential election with the leftist cities pulling the whole state even thought there are a lot of conservatives in other parts. Plus, breaking it up might create more opportunities for conservative Senators.
The U.S. should trade Vermont, Massachusetts and a state to be named later to Canada in exchange for Alberta. :-)
I had though of a rather different division, involving the state of Nevada.
The southern part of Nevada, including Clark County and most particularly Las Vegas, would be ceded to California, and the point where the state line turns north, in the middle of Lake Tahoe, simply draw the line straight west to the Pacific Ocean. Nevada gets access to the sea, and both Sacramento and San Francisco stay in the “New California”, which now has the revenue from Las Vegas to help with the state’s budget problem.
Las Vegas has sucked the remainder of Nevada dry (literally) with its diversion of water rights, from areas that could not deliver water to the Las Vegas region by any simple gravity or even major engineering means. Las Vegas should be dealing with Los Angeles for the water rights, not Elko or Fallon.
Cut up Texas too. The other state should be New York and then all would be good.