Blue State Secession

It’s time for “Bluexit,” argues Kevin Baker at The New Republic, a blue-state secession. Here’s the thesis: Blues fund most of the federal government, and are responsible for most of the economic output of the country. Red states receive vastly more federal aid than they pay in, and then they have the temerity to complain about the size of federal government and claim victim status.

This is not a winning combination for Blue states, and Baker urges his fellow Blue staters to reject a losing social contract. He doesn’t call for actual Confederate-style secession; only that Blue states should minimize their contributions to the Federal government, stop building infrastructure for farm communities and Amtrak for small towns in Montana, and pursue their own social and economic experiments.

It’s a snarky, mean-spirited essay, but Baker scores some points.

Like this: “Red states are nearly twice as dependent on the federal government as blue states. Of the twelve states that received the least federal aid in return for each tax dollar they contribute to the U.S. Treasury, ten of them voted for Hillary Clinton—and the other two were Michigan and Wisconsin, your newest recruits. By the same count, 20 of the 26 states most dependent on federal aid went to Trump.”

He cites Mississippi as a specific example: “More than 40 percent of Mississippi’s state revenue comes from federal funding; one-third of its GDP comes from federal spending; for every dollar it pays out in federal taxes, it takes in $4.70 in federal aid; one in five residents are on food stamps—all national highs.”