This:
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.
I know a lot of Freepers say, “Let them go! Good riddance!” But there would be a civil war if California left the union. Then there would also be a chance of genocide or massive deportation of Mexicans in California.
None of this is a joke. We have to stop this secession talk before we see the rise of secessionist terrorist groups in California and its border states. I’m not kidding.
One word:
Bankrupt!
If there was a serious push for secession, I would write letters to every major Republican Congressman urging them to support California seceding.
Of course, the first thing the commies here will do is jack up the tax rate to 50%. This will never happen (secession) but our family will leave in a heartbeat.
After going broke is a short time, California would ask for re-admission to the US....
They should be told, “I don’t think so...”
Left out of the discussion is the amount of federal taxes that California pays.
Wikipedia says that California pays $7,690.66 per capita.
That is $1,239 per California resident more than what California gets from the U.S.
It appears that California pays more federal taxes than they get federal tax revenues.
They won’t leave.
States that leave won’t ever get a Federal bailout.
The same sobering reality that dawned on the loonies in Quebec back in the ‘70’s.
This:
Exactly!
What would happen if the Federal government just took away some of that 93.6 billion in aid? Why should the rest of the country pay for MediCal for illegals?
Remove all Federal Government facilities, including military bases along with subsequent support and contracts to private firms and that brings it Way down.
The argument showing what it would take for valid secession is laid out here: https://sonsofconstitutionalliberty.com/secession-and-california/ No state is anywhere close.
However, this raises an interesting and important point. States need to assert their constitutional sovereignty and reject and nullify unconstitutional federal actions and THAT would necessitate a state being willing to forego federal funding and become financially INDEPENDENT of the feds, the way the states used to be. That isn’t secession, that is reinstating our Constitutional Federal Republic with sovereign states under the Constitution and a relatively small central government existing, as created and limited by the Constitution, mainly to protect the states from invasion.
I would let some of Kalifornica go. They would not get to force the republican interior to go with them. They also do not get key military installations including the key harbor in San Diego and free access to it.
After that, with one party rule, unlimited immigration from Mexico, it will not take long for Mexico to draw it into their orbit for re-unification. It is then not a long step to Venezuela status.
And, Kalifornica has to take their portion of the National Debt, and pay for a wall around what it is leaving.
We’d never have another Democrat President for the next 100 years.
I like the idea of CA leaving, but they must be held. Responsible for thier share of the debt. The rest of us could probably trade a corridor to and from the ports if Los Angeles and Long Beach, which would also remain in the US plus the land required to house transportation workers. That would cover a small part of what they owe. I am sure we could figure out the rest to make it work. Maybe the Sierras and central valley with thier watersheds would pick up up the rest.
CA needs to be split into 2-3 different states as the political views are so polar in the various parts. And I would not be against CA leaving the Union. Let them leave and good riddance. They can establish a socialist utopia like all the others around the world. We will buy their farm produce and sell water to them if they can run the farm collectives.
On what do you base this conclusion? The illegal immigration issue is not the same as the slavery issue. Slavery was morally wrong. Illegal immigration is morally wrong. But ending slavery and ending illegal immigration are not really comparable.
Secondly, the Civil War was fought mainly to keep the Union whole. Ending slavery was a beneficial by-product. The Union is not the same as it was in the mid 19th century. It could be argued that the North and South could really not have survived without each other. If California were to leave the Union there would no doubt be economic consequences for the rest of the nation. But, the rest of the nation can survive without California. The question for Californians is can California survive without the rest of the nation?
The author of this essay seems to have an answer to that question.
1-They would not inherit DOD assets.
2-They’d likely be taken over by Mexico, but nobody would notice the difference.
3-Dem’s would lose both the popular and electoral vote for decades to come, as CA has 54 electoral votes.
4-The rest of the U.S. would no longer be infected by CA liberalism.
5-We’d find a way to manage without their GDP contribution, given their drag on entitlement spending.
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