By: KEVIN JOLLY
Staff Writer
What is Calexit? Essentially, it’s a concept being advocated by ‘Yes California’, and means a California secession from the Union. This is something that’s been debated by Californians for a few years now, and from time to time comes up in conversation. But would a California secession be in our best interest? Let’s look into two schools of thought between the Liberal and Conservative perspectives of politics, economics, and the overall outcome of Calexit.
One of the biggest reasons some will advocate for Calexit is tax subsidization. What was true in 1987 is still true today; California receives a fraction of the tax money it sends to the federal government back, while many states receive more service than they pay. This effectively means that California ends up paying for the economic failures of other states. What makes this so outrageous to many Californians is that most often the states leeching off California’s wealth are red states, the states that will vote against Californian values which are palpably more liberal. These are also the states that not only actively work against California, but will relentlessly criticize Californian high tax policy while enjoying their own low tax policy, a luxury California ironically provides.
An independent California would also mean leaving behind the taxes required for the unfathomable and unnecessary expenses of the US military. The new country would also be able to more freely and easily pursue its own interests like medicare, immigration policy, climate change, and education, all things clearly outlined as Californian interests from who we vote as governors and senators, without interference from more conservative states opposing what many Californians see as progress every step of the way. With the overturning of Roe V. Wade, the very recent stunt from Florida’s Ron De Santis treating immigrants as political pawns at the expense of their well-being, increasing gun violence with a lack of motivation to act from Conservatives, it’s easy to see from a liberal standpoint California could expedite moving forward with its agendas isolated from the increasingly divided political climate bogging it down.
Contrarily, from a conservative Californian’s perspective, it could be disastrous for what they want to see in their state. Severing political connections to the federal government and other states could essentially mean conservatives in California possibly couldn’t ever see conservative ideals in effect. This is a possibility due to massive populations of liberal Californians in the coastal big cities being able to sweep elections against the less populated and more spread-out urban/rural conservative areas. This would actually cause even more division and most likely increase hostility between these two different cultures found in California.
On top of this, the vast majority of economic academics and professionals all agree that Calexit would actually harm the economy rather than boost it. No matter how much misalignment Californian values have with other states, there is no denying the foreign power and influence every state has when combined together. An independent California would have to build its own foreign relations over again in accordance with new trade and market policy. There are also the troubles with setting up a new trading policy with the US which could possibly create things like tariffs or taxes which is a whole other battle. It’s hard to say what exactly would happen following a successful California secession, but there are just too many uncertainties economically to assume California could continue holding its impressive ranking as the sixth largest economy in the world..
But all of that aside, is it even possible? Something important to keep in mind is that almost every serious politician, academic, economist, and professional, even if they agree with Calexit, acknowledges it as a fantastical hypothetical rather than something worth real consideration. Secession is illegal, explicitly so on a judicial level, and has been so since the Supreme Court ruled it unconstitutional a few years after the civil war. Since the civil war, there hasn’t been a secession and it doesn’t look like there will ever be, at least for the foreseeable future. Going off of what senators and politicians have said, there just isn’t the willpower in the right places to make it happen, even if every Californian voted in favor of it. And most Californians don’t even want it, with the official ‘Yes California’ survey finding only a little over 100,000 votes out of the 39 million Californians.