Should Texas secede from the U.S.?

[I_M4_AU 7,838]

1 hour ago, Aufan59 said:

It would be higher than 2%.  In a world where everyone does the right thing, there will still be poverty.  Poverty will always exist.  Even if everyone worked hard and did all the correct things, there will still be people at the bottom.

 

Thus poverty should be treated as a societal problem, not a problem of individual actors and their choices.

 

Do you believe poor people will always exist?

 

Also as a footnote, poverty line for individuals in 2010 was about $11,000, less than full time minimum wage.  Yikes!  

 

Of course poverty will exist.  That is not the issue.  The issue is a welfare system that doesn’t even try to get the recipients off of the system and is not helping people feel they can succeed.  I don't know the answer, but the current system is not it.  Probably too late to try so that is why the politicians avoid the subject when it comes to elections and balancing the budget.

14 hours ago, Aufan59 said:

The alternative is that we let them die on the street.

Don’t look now, but;

According to Homeless Deaths Count, an average of 20 homeless people die daily in the United States of America. This number is not only alarming, but it is also increasing at an unprecedented rate.

https://invisiblepeople.tv/the-true-toll-of-homelessness-20-homeless-people-die-daily/#:~:text=According to Homeless Deaths Count,the United States of America.

People are being overlooked even with our system of welfare.

[Aufan59 62]

26 minutes ago, I_M4_AU said:

Of course poverty will exist.  That is not the issue.  The issue is a welfare system that doesn’t even try to get the recipients off of the system and is not helping people feel they can succeed.  I don't know the answer, but the current system is not it.  Probably too late to try so that is why the politicians avoid the subject when it comes to elections and balancing the budget.

Don’t look now, but;

According to Homeless Deaths Count, an average of 20 homeless people die daily in the United States of America. This number is not only alarming, but it is also increasing at an unprecedented rate.

https://invisiblepeople.tv/the-true-toll-of-homelessness-20-homeless-people-die-daily/#:~:text=According to Homeless Deaths Count,the United States of America.

People are being overlooked even with our system of welfare.

We agree that a social safety net is needed, but we should be aiming to reduce the amount of people who rely on it.

 

As pointed out in the speech you highlighted earlier, government providing employment can do that.

 

Do you have a better solution?  Or is it to tell people to stop being lazy?

[I_M4_AU 7,838]

1 hour ago, Aufan59 said:

We agree that a social safety net is needed, but we should be aiming to reduce the amount of people who rely on it.

 

As pointed out in the speech you highlighted earlier, government providing employment can do that.

 

Do you have a better solution?  Or is it to tell people to stop being lazy?

Government employment did work when we were coming out of the depression.  I suggested earlier that a mandatory 4 year stint in the Armed Forces would be ideal.  It’s government work and can lay the foundation for satisfying work the youth needs to carry on. 

Other than that the only suggestion is a focus on the nuclear family where there is a father and a mother taking care of the kids in their formative years.

[Aufan59 62]

Getting government assistance requiring service in the armed forces is an interesting idea.

Though from a report in 2020, most of the people receiving SNAP or medicare worked full time. 
 

https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-21-45

 

Walmart and McDonalds would lose a significant amount of their workforce if they needed to be in the army instead.  I’m not sure this is practical.
 

You bring up a good point about the nuclear family.  Maybe we should have required paid maternity/paternity leave?  Or wages high enough for one parent to not work?  How would we do this?

[creed 1,637]

On 2/1/2024 at 11:22 PM, AURex said:

 

Apparently, this idea of Texas seceding from the U.S. has come up again because -- I dunno -- immigrants.

Texas receives $68.2 Billion. in Federal dollars.

1/3 of Texas state budget is Federal dollars.

Should Texas secede?

 

That's half of the equation. How many federal dollars did Texas send to Washington DC. ?

Here's the latest I could find.

Texans sent  federal government $261 billion in taxes in 2016, and the state government received $39.5 billion in grants in return, or about 15 percent of our total federal tax tab.

[AURex 1,998]

Still, to maintain even the same level of funding for state government, Texas would have to raise taxes for their new country.

More importantly, IMO, is that a very large portion of Texas business/industry would skip out. NASA, Tesla, all the computer tech companies, all the big medical companies. Sports? No longer part of any U.S. conference/league. Education? No more accreditation or funding for higher education.

Even if the U.S. federal government said "okay, bye", I just think it would be a total disaster. Economy? They have some cows and some oil, but they'd be competing on an international market. Tourism? Nope.

Borders? Then Texas becomes a foreign border. Can't bus immigrants into the U.S. and ALL of those immigrants are their own problem.

I think even Abbott and Paxton are smart enough to not go there. Maybe.

 

[auburnatl1 4,920]

32 minutes ago, AURex said:

Still, to maintain even the same level of funding for state government, Texas would have to raise taxes for their new country.

More importantly, IMO, is that a very large portion of Texas business/industry would skip out. NASA, Tesla, all the computer tech companies, all the big medical companies. Sports? No longer part of any U.S. conference/league. Education? No more accreditation or funding for higher education.

Even if the U.S. federal government said "okay, bye", I just think it would be a total disaster. Economy? They have some cows and some oil, but they'd be competing on an international market. Tourism? Nope.

Borders? Then Texas becomes a foreign border. Can't bus immigrants into the U.S. and ALL of those immigrants are their own problem.

I think even Abbott and Paxton are smart enough to not go there. Maybe.

 

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I grew up in Miami. It may not be rational, fiscal, or legal for some in Texas to want to secede in frustration  - but Im familiar with the instinct.

[CoffeeTiger 5,108]

On 2/4/2024 at 9:31 AM, I_M4_AU said:

Government employment did work when we were coming out of the depression.  I suggested earlier that a mandatory 4 year stint in the Armed Forces would be ideal.  It’s government work and can lay the foundation for satisfying work the youth needs to carry on. 

Other than that the only suggestion is a focus on the nuclear family where there is a father and a mother taking care of the kids in their formative years.

You'd run into the same problems that the Army is facing now with it's recruiting problems. 

Too many young people are ineligible for military service due to factors like obesity, substance abuse problems, mental health problems, and physical disabilities. All of these problems are likely to be exacerbated for the population that relies on government assistance to supplement or fully cover their living expenses. 

 

 

And like @Aufan59 mentioned above, you'd be taking away the primary workforce for the retail and food service industry.

 

 

 

[I_M4_AU 7,838]

1 hour ago, CoffeeTiger said:

You'd run into the same problems that the Army is facing now with it's recruiting problems. 

Too many young people are ineligible for military service due to factors like obesity, substance abuse problems, mental health problems, and physical disabilities. All of these problems are likely to be exacerbated for the population that relies on government assistance to supplement or fully cover their living expenses. 

 

 

And like @Aufan59 mentioned above, you'd be taking away the primary workforce for the retail and food service industry.

 

 

 

Do you really believe the youth of today are that useless?  I would hope not.  Hey, but the Dems have suggested to have illegal immigrants be able to volunteer for service in the Armed Forces…..problem solved.

[CoffeeTiger 5,108]

2 minutes ago, I_M4_AU said:

Do you really believe the youth of today are that useless?  I would hope not.  Hey, but the Dems have suggested to have illegal immigrants be able to volunteer for service in the Armed Forces…..problem solved.

 

https://prod-media.asvabprogram.com/CEP_PDF_Contents/Qualified_Military_Available.pdf

In 2020 the military estimated that only 23% of Americans aged 17-24s were fully qualified to serve in the military. 

 

[I_M4_AU 7,838]

5 minutes ago, CoffeeTiger said:

 

https://prod-media.asvabprogram.com/CEP_PDF_Contents/Qualified_Military_Available.pdf

In 2020 the military estimated that only 23% of Americans aged 17-24s were fully qualified to serve in the military. 

 

I wonder what would happen if we had a draft?  We need to put all 23% of the qualified in the Armed Services for 4 years if this is the case.

[cole256 17,080]

On 2/2/2024 at 9:17 AM, TexasTiger said:

Not with its lousy electrical grid.

Texas has more resources than most states as far as energy production, if they succeeded it would actually open them up more to do things with the grid, they are hamstrung a little because of federal rules.

But leadership would have to make smart decisions. If they were stupid and said they were going to be dependent on wind and solar then there would absolutely be a collapse in the infrastructure

[TexasTiger 12,876]

12 minutes ago, cole256 said:

Texas has more resources than most states as far as energy production, if they succeeded it would actually open them up more to do things with the grid, they are hamstrung a little because of federal rules.

But leadership would have to make smart decisions. If they were stupid and said they were going to be dependent on wind and solar then there would absolutely be a collapse in the infrastructure

The crux of the problem. Morons in power. And it extends beyond any over dependence on sustainable resources.

https://www.businessinsider.com/moving-from-texas-power-outage-ercot-energy-grid-winter-storm-2023-12?amp

[cole256 17,080]

20 minutes ago, TexasTiger said:

The crux of the problem. Morons in power. And it extends beyond any over dependence on sustainable resources.

https://www.businessinsider.com/moving-from-texas-power-outage-ercot-energy-grid-winter-storm-2023-12?amp

I know all about it. I lived it. I was out in that winter working getting power to the people that could still get it. The public don't know how close it came to being so much worse than it was. Our plant was one of the only ones that still ran and maintained but we came very close to tripping ourselves.

That's why I say what I said. One of the major problems was dependency of resources. You see all that money they pump into solar and wind gave the state absolutely nothing during that crisis. While the nuclear plant gets taxed out of the wahoo and it's pretty much the only reason we were able to sustain. Well one of. The other resources the state had to pay ungodly amounts of money to buy energy from other regions of the country

[TexasTiger 12,876]

4 minutes ago, cole256 said:

The other resources the state had to pay ungodly amounts of money to buy energy from other regions of the country

This was a huge issue to Texans. Bipartisan.

And we get warnings all the time— like a third world country.

[cole256 17,080]

14 minutes ago, TexasTiger said:

This was a huge issue to Texans. Bipartisan.

That's how the industry works all across the country. Some regions are regulated like the Southeast and others aren't like Texas. So the nuclear plants in Texas has a harder time operating and making money then some others.

Every every company has a group that buys and sells energy. It's literally ran just like a stock market and weather dictates everything. When it gets too hot or cold an ocn is issued this means plants have to go hands off. Nobody does any work of any kind as far as touching the plant, you can't risk somebody making a mistake and tripping a unit off. Usually every day a nuclear plant is offline costs a company 10-20 million dollars. 

Depending on the type of plant depends on if it should go down or not and if it did go down how long to get it back up. Gas plants known as pallets peakers can shut down and start up every day and get running in a few hours. A nuclear plant should run from fuel cycle to fuel cycle so that means they should only go down for an outage every year to year and a half. It takes a couple of days to get a nuclear plant going.

So when places are in an ocn and they still need power all the other companies know they are desperate so of course the price goes up. The same for Texas in the summer if Florida has a hurricane or tornados in North c or Tennessee Texas can sell at a premium rate and there are other things like if other an emergency they pay for the plants fuel for the start up and a bunch of incentives like that. Because peakers are ran on a schedule and if the schedule ever gets pushed that's bonus money.

Nothing is the same at any plant in Texas after that winter storm now. I had to travel at a bunch of different sites and consult for the different plants winter readiness procedures and policies.

 

[SaltyTiger 7,808]

1 hour ago, TexasTiger said:

The crux of the problem. Morons in power.

Debatable about all in power.  Need to be smart to know the proper timing for a beach in Mexico vacation don’t you?

[TexasTiger 12,876]

6 minutes ago, SaltyTiger said:

Debatable about all in power.  Need to be smart to know the proper timing for a beach in Mexico vacation don’t you?

He’s federal. And smart guys avoid cameras while fleeing.

[Mims44 1,869]

On 2/1/2024 at 11:22 PM, AURex said:

 

Apparently, this idea of Texas seceding from the U.S. has come up again because -- I dunno -- immigrants.

Texas receives $68.2 Billion. in Federal dollars.

1/3 of Texas state budget is Federal dollars.

Should Texas secede?

 

Thought the Civil War settled the legality of secession for states.

🤷‍♂️

 

How many of us are still young enough to sign up for Civil War 2.0?  

[SaltyTiger 7,808]

1 hour ago, Mims44 said:

Thought the Civil War settled the legality of secession for states.

🤷‍♂️

 

How many of us are still young enough to sign up for Civil War 2.0?  

I have doubts Texas will be seceding but looks like something fun to talk about.

[auburnatl1 4,920]

Does this mean UT and TAMU are out of the sec???!!!

[TexasTiger 12,876]

6 minutes ago, auburnatl1 said:

Does this mean UT and TAMU are out of the sec???!!!

We can dream.

[AURex 1,998]

Yes. And also SpaceX and all other high tech industries receiving federal R&D funding are out of Texas, and all of the huge biomedical research companies and the health sciences centers (hospitals, clinics, Medicare & Medicade programs, etc).

The easiest way for the federal government to convince Texas that secession is a bad idea? Cut off ALL federal funding.

Hundreds of thousands of people, maybe millions, would flee the new independent autocracy of Texas in short time. Raise taxes, but with dwindling population, still not enough tax dollars to keep the new country afloat.

The whole idea is a typical crazoid MAGA political talking point. But ya know, even Abbott and Paxton are not stupid enough to actually try it. Or are they? hahahaha

 

[1716AU 728]

Too bad they can't.

They can try, illegally, but it really wouldn't be pretty for them.

[AuCivilEng1 11,010]

Yes! Texas should def secede. I would be very interested in seeing this little experiment play out. They carry on like they’re being dragged down by the federal government. Let’s see if they are. 

Edited February 6 by AuCivilEng1