Why Red states will NEVER secede from the Union

[omahas]

There's been a lot of noise from a small but vocal community of libertarian and tea-party Republicans who believe that, especially after Obama was successfully re-elected, secession is the only resort left. I find this amusing in light of the evidence...but then, maybe that evidence hasn't been put in a simple enough context for them.

So, I decided

Comments

[ideaphile]

Just for clarity, I feel it's important to point out that the surplus/deficit figures quoted here compare 20 years of Federal taxation and spending against just one year of GDP. In other words, for the majority of the red states in the bottom half of the table, net Federal spending represents less than 2.5% of the state's economy

[ideaphile]

Oh, I forgot to point out that the data shown here are based on 1990-2009 Federal taxation and spending, so the sad, serious effects of the last three years are not visible.

Also, as the Federal government's role in the economy continues to expand, the break-even point will continue to march down the page, with more and more states being forced into the position of paying more in Federal taxes than they receive in Federal spending.

So in a sense, your chart gives us a start on figuring out when the balance will shift to the point that secession becomes a favorable economic strategy for the "Romney Union."

(Not that Romney himself would have anything to do with it; he received those votes only because a Boston liberal was marginally more attractive to conservatives than a Chicago socialist. He wouldn't even make the ballot in a union of red states.)

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[omahas]

This post is not about how much the input of Federal taxes impact each state's economy individually, but on the whole how much each state is contributing towards other states. In other words, the fact that the Federal government collects more taxes in the majority of states that voted for Obama and redistributes them to the majority of states that voted for Romney says that the majority of states that voted for Romney would be operating at a deficit if they formed their own union just to start off

[ideaphile]

Your post relied on an analysis of the effect of Federal taxation and spending on the individual states in order to support your argument about the red states collectively, so it's important that the underlying analysis is correct