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I'm surprised that such obvious trolling from a Lakers fan during playoff time got so many responses.
I'm pretty sure the US would continue to lease those facilities from Texas, if push came to shove. I know you can't fathom a position that isn't zero sum. Sucks to be you I guess. BTW...Texas is a "blue" state in the context that it sends more to the Federal Gov than it receives. So, in balance, we might actually come out ahead...not that I'd trust the Tx Legislature to handle the money well.
I'm surprised that such obvious trolling from a Lakers fan during playoff time got so many responses.
I know, right? It's fun when the kids come out and post on the weekend.
"I'm pretty sure the US would continue to lease those facilities from Texas"
that's cheating, figures. You want TX to keep all the inflow of federal dollars from other states, but still be an independent country.
If TX were a purely foreign country, everything I listed would be gone. San Antonio's economy would collapse without the military.
Would Texas being a foreign country not have it's OWN military?
Depends on how amicable the split was.
If the split was amicable, you might not have to worry about instantly going into billions of dollars of debt to create a standing army.
Cheating? WTF are you on, dude?
I love how you couch this as TX keeping inflow from other states. You know that's how a country is supposed to work, right? And it doesn't follow that everything you listed would be gone. The US does lease bases across the world. , the US pays agricultural subsidies to foreign countries. Brazillian cotton, anyone?
Again, I don't expect you to have the cognitive ability to grasp the contradictory flow of cash and equities. But, if you're gonna claim that it's gonna crash an economy, put up the numbers or GFY.
BTW, San Antonio does not equal the entire state. Again, put up some numbers or gfy.
With all the guns in Texas, they'd have a decent militia.
Dunno....Nato sure does the job for alot of European countries. I'm sure a defense pact would be negotiated.
It's just a giant thought exercise....it'll never happen. And if it did, I don't think for a minute it wouldn't be difficult. But fatal, nope.Depends on how amicable the split was.
If the split was amicable, you might not have to worry about instantly going into billions of dollars of debt to create a standing army.
While this is true, I don't think that the US military would find a strong need to keep open bases in TX if it split. The bases in other parts of the world are usually strategically placed (ie. good for air ops/refuels, or for quick response to a country that doesn't like us).
Not sure what the strategic benefit would be to keep bases in Texas long-term.
Loss of military and federal offices would definitely massively hurt San Antonio. (military alone is 75k jobs and $5 billion)
So would the extreme loss of conventions, etc, that would happen if SA was no longer part of the US.
Other TX cities would fare better, but SA would be decimated if Texas were to seceede.
Given the premises of the thought exercise, if Texas seceding made the quality of life of it's citizens worse than Texas as part of the US, I'd call that a failure.
Yeah, I don't really know....I guess the B1B program could be moved to another airbase instead of Dyess AFB, for example. I think proximity to Mexico/Latin America might be worth a base or two tho.
It's probably not going to be a static position. I would expect improvement after the initial s acking of relocations.Given the premises of the thought exercise, if Texas seceding made the quality of life of it's citizens worse than Texas as part of the US, I'd call that a failure.
Realistically, this thought experiment really needs to define whether or not the split is amicable or not. (We all know real-world that it would never happen, but we need to know for the purposes of this convo.)
Because if the split isn't amicable, I don't see how Texas survives as anything but a 2nd/3rd world country.
Texas a net recipient of welfare dollars, to my recollection of the data.Put some numbers behind these bullet points of yours. How much money are you talking about here? I doubt you'll bother...you usually don't if you cant find it on truthout.borg.
As to Texas' net contribution to the union, that would be much harder to wrap one's head around.
Pluses:
Houston, Austin, San Antonio, Dallas = Energy, Tech, Health Care, Energy/Agriculture respectively.
These cities offer a lot of vibrant economic activity
Cheap labor
Minuses:
Lots of poor people, including illegal immigrants
That is it in a nuts .
right-wingers love to point to Texas and say "look at the differences that a business friendly regulatory environment makes", but the real story is, as always, not quite so cut and dried. Oil and natural gas add no small portion to that, and the jobs we create don't tend to pay well.
We have a huge military and security presence because of the border, and most of that is paid for by the rest of the country. Add in the ag and welfare subsidies, and my gut says we are a net beneficiary in monetary terms of the union.
That said, it has been remarked that we would be almost instantly overrun by drug cartels, and I would concur.
Without the backing of a powerful FBI and other federal agencies, I do not think Texas would withstand the corruptive influences. The expenses of creating a new country from scratch with its own currency, state deparment, replacement for FAA, FBI, etc, would be enough to drag the economy down fairly quickly.
Cession is one of those emotionally appealing but ultimately ed ideas for any US state.
Eh, the AF would still have bases in California, Florida, Missisippi, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arizona, and Nevada. We've got most of the south covered.
Not really anything long term, but they'd certainly keep a lot of them open in the short term, considering how major some of them are to the US military, particularly here in SA.
It take a while for them to figure out how to rearrange regional headquarters, move training ops, etc, and as long as Texas was willing to let them stay for a while, they'd probably take some time to do so (not overly long, less than a decade, but it'd certainly slow the withdrawal for jobs and funds to a more manageable rate).
I've lived through a military base closure and know first hand that it sucks. I was teaching in Big Spring when they closed Webb AFB. Big Spring got their asses kicked short term. But, having the big ass Cosden refinery there did help mitigate the damage somewhat.
I don't think SA would lose alot, if any, of it's convention business as long as trade negotiations continued freely. That riverwalk's a money maker.
Oh yeah, that's why I specified long-term. Totally agree with you that if it's friendly, then they try to keep at least one or two bases open, maybe more. (I doubt they'd keep the saturation that's there now though.)
Of course, it all hinges on how friendly the breakup is. If it's full-on war, ops can ramp up quite quickly.
I would predicate the spit upon amicable terms, which makes it even less likely to happen. A full on secession for any other reason would likely be a disaster.
But since the OP has the IQ of a demented Chihuahua, it's unlikely he's gonna specify the terms.
I would predicate the spit upon amicable terms, which makes it even less likely to happen. A full on secession for any other reason would likely be a disaster.
But since the OP has the IQ of a demented Chihuahua, it's unlikely he's gonna specify the terms.
Eh, I'm just having fun anyways. If somehow this was some alternate universe in which the US would allow Texas to secede, then Texas COULD survive, but I doubt it would become, long term, any more successful than the US.
I think the more interesting question would be... if TX seceded, how many other states would join TX? Probably a good chuck of the South/Midwest.
Of course, you could break it down further... if TX seceded, would any cities then want to remain loyal to the US? Austin, I'm looking at you...
I would have to assume it's amicable BECAUSE of the US military presence on TX soil. I don't think you can seceede unilaterally when there's a quarter million heavily armed, soon to be foreign military personnel on the ground already, as well as several intelligence offices for the soon-to-be foreign government.
At least, not without pressure from the international community to allow it.
That's a pretty good point.
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