'Liens on their property': Dem reveals blue states' secret weapon against Trump

[Metaphorical]

52. This is part of what I see as a soft secession

Trump is acting illegally - in effect claiming moneys that were already allocated by a lawful process for non-legal means, and doing so in a punitive manner. A quick breakdown (note, Google generated, so take with a grain of salt) of donor states and how much more they pay minus. how much they receive.

* New York: $89 billion
* California: $78 billion
* New Jersey: $70 billion
* Texas: $67 billion
* Washington: $55 billion
* Massachusetts: $46 billion
* Minnesota: $44 billion
* Ohio: $37 billion
* Illinois: $28 billion
* Missouri: $22 billion
* Florida: $17 billion
* Georgia: $14 billion
* Colorado: $14 billion
* Delaware: $11 billion
* Nebraska: $8 billion
* Utah: $7 billion
* Connecticut: $5 billion
* Tennessee: $4 billion
* Rhode Island: $3 billion

Of these, the net blue state contributions is around $400 billion per annum (red states are about $180 billion) than they receive. For clarity, here's what the rest of country looks like in terms of what they receive net:

Wyoming: +$339M
North Dakota: +$741M
New Hampshire: +$794M
Pennsylvania: +$965M
South Dakota: +$1B
Arkansas: +$1B
Kansas: +$2B
Nevada: +$3B
Wisconsin: +$3B
Vermont: +$4B
Indiana: +$4B
Iowa: +$6B
Idaho: +$6B
Montana: +$6B
North Carolina: +$10B
Alaska: +$11B
Hawaii: +$11B
Maine: +$12B
District of Columbia: +$14B
Oklahoma: +$18B
Oregon: +$18B
West Virginia: +$20B
Michigan: +$21B
Kentucky: +$23B
Louisiana: +$26B
New Mexico: +$29B
Mississippi: +$30B
Maryland: +$35B
South Carolina: +$37B
Arizona: +$40B
Alabama: +$41B
Virginia: +$79B

Virginia and Maryland may be a bit of a surprise, but in these cases, most of the wages being paid are paid by Federal workers, military personnel, etc. (as well as facility and related costs), and as such is considered a deficit in terms of expenditures. It is likely that both states would be firmly in the donor category (as a guess, around 8th and 12th respectively) if viewed primarily through the lens of social program spending.

Trump's modus operandi is to stiff his contractors, then drag it out in court when they sue, figuring that he can outlast them. The problem here is that if states start encouraging businesses to pay taxes to their respective states rather than to the Federal government (which is where I see this going), there really is nothing that Trump can do about it, because the same strategy can be used against him. He could threaten to move military bases, but beyond the overall upheaval coming FROM the military about doing this, the reality is that most of those bases are large, established naval ports, staging facilities for military aircraft, submarine servicing yards, and construction facilities, many with major strategic significance. What is he going to do? Move them to Florida or Texas which have already maxed out all available harbours? Florida has lousy harbors, New Orleans is too siltified, Mobile, AL is not much better. Most Red States are mostly or completely landlocked.

We are moving into a post-Constitutional period. When Trump withholds monies that have been congressionally allocated, he is in contravention of the Constitution. If he declares Martial Law, this is an abrogation of the Constitution if it is not supported by Congress, and I fully expect that he would use whatever trickery he can get away with to keep Congress from not giving it to him. Once that happens, the contract that the states have with the Federal government (which is what the Constitution is) becomes null and void, and either a new contract needs to be drawn up and agreed to by all parties, or we will end up going our separate ways.

Everyone seems to believe that the problem will magically go away - Trump will keel over from a heart attack, someone will fly a weapons-laden drone into Mara Lago, etc., but I think we have to work on the assumption that if Trump doesn't honor the Constitution, then he will also do everything he can to hold onto power illegally, generally by making the illegal legal, but only with respect to him.

Thus the soft secession. In a way, Trump is a symptom rather than the problem. The system itself is falling apart, because there's no real mechanism to adapt the Constitution in a politically efficacious manner and because private actors (big multinationals) have reached a point where they can capture the regulatory mechanisms of the country.