Alaska was talking secession back when Sarah Palin was Governor. Many of us still are.
Being geographically separated Alaska and Hawaii stand a far better chance than any of the other states. If the government crashes, Alaska can survive. Most of our trade is with the Far East anyway, not the lower 48. We could survive, where the rest of the States would flounder since few states have ports, and those that do produce little themselves. And with the EPA out of our hair we could produce much more. We have huge deposits of Copper, Molybednum, Lead, iron, Gold, Silver, Zinc, Coal, Oil, Gas, and those Rare Earth Minerals we are currently getting from China.
Alaska currently exports Coal, Barley, Oil, Timber, Fish, and other products in smaller quantities. Asian Tourism is big as well. We could survive alone, can the rest of the states?
Wow. What a great post. Makes me want to move there.
Sourdough makes a strong argument for Alaska's self-sufficiency, the implicit question then is what does a State need a Federal Government for? All of the 4 states in the Free State Project are similar to Alaska in that they've made economic independence from the Federal government a priority, and achievement. Montana for example produces more food than it eats, more fuel than it burns, etc. and has revenue from exports. Nutritionally they have all they need to survive independently, and enough left over for trade.
The significance of a Doomsday Bill, to me, is recognizing that States need to be thinking about self-sufficiency now. Start with a Doomsday scenario, have a plan for what happens the minute after the Federal government ceases to function. Then work backwards to make your state as immune to negative impact from a governmental or federal economic collapse. This is well within keeping of the Constitutional idea of each state being a sovereign of a sort, working together in a Republic or collaboration of sovereign peers, for the good of all.
Its my estimation that those states who are most dependent on the federal government, like Hawaii where I recently lived for 5 years, are the most liberal, most willing to abandon liberty for all, in exchange for government money. Hawaii receives back more from the government than it sends in revenues ... I don't know the percentage. I'd like to find the data that shows each state, rank them in order by the difference between how much revenue they send to the Federal government in taxes, and how much benefit they receive from the government. That would be very telling. That's not supposed to be the way this works. The cost of government is a shared burden, not to any one states benefit, and its spread equally around the states. There should be no situation where a dollar leaves a state in federal taxes only to return as federal money to fund a project ... the loss in overhead is staggering and begs the question. Its like the states are saying, here's all my money, now I want you to spend it back in my state please. Better just to keep it and spend it as the state sees fit.
And its because states have forgotten the face of their fathers ... that a regional event in DC or NYC will spread like economic and social wildfire across the states along the chains of dependency. Better to break the chains now while still participating as a state in the Republic.
