[HostileTerritory]

I don't think the rest of the country would survive without our subsidizing y'all, though.

People love to bash Massachusetts, New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey until their congressmen go hat-in-hand to Washington to pay for a new highway or dam or research center with our tax dollars.

[Wallace T.]

The Kerrys, Kennedys, Schumers, and Clintons will vote for any and every Federal program wanted by the other states. It isn't as if the New England states, New York, and New Jersey were resisting pork barrel projects in other states. After all, if they resisted, say, NASA funding largely spent in Texas and Florida, how could they get senators from those states to subsidize Amtrak or to fund that horrible highway boondoggle in downtown Boston called "The Big Dig."

I don't deny that New England, New Jersey, and the New York metro region have many creative people and good businessmen. However, most of these states have state and local governments that are far more intrusive and taxing than their counterparts (except California, Washington, Oregon, and Maryland). The Northeast's financial fortunes are to a considerable extent due to the fact that the Federal government is less intrusive and offers lower taxes than most of the Western democracies. The relatively light touch of Washington is primarily due to the more conservative politics of the South, Midwest, and Plains and Mountain states.

Place the seven states (and an eighth state for downstate New York) into a union with socialist-minded provinces like New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland, and the central government of this federation would likely turn the region into something like a European social democracy, complete with state-run medicine, cradle to grave social welfare, tolerance for pedophiles and transvestites, legislation against conservative Christians preaching the Gospel, illegalizing home schooling, heavy discouragement of automobile use, 60-75% top income tax bracket, etc.

Meanwhile, the US Senate would be rid of 14 mostly liberal Democrat or RINO senators and the Presidential race would be short of 80-100 votes that are either a Democrat shoo-in or highly likely to go for Kerry.