Secession?

Gary Lopez (of COG fame) and I don't always have to disagree. Oftentimes, he brings forth ideas that we wouldn't normally consider. While we do rarely agree, he definitely starts me thinking...

Case in point - right now Mr. Lopez is in "secession" mode. Basically, his argument is that the Cape is getting run over by the Mass. legislature and high energy prices. He believes that we are not receiving our fair share of state funds and that we could have better energy prices and infrastructure if we had a Cape-wide municipality utility handle electricity production and distribution.

His solution - have the Cape secede from the State of Massachusetts and keep all the same laws as Massachusetts, but we get to keep all the tax/lottery funds that we generate.

I don't agree with the government-owned utility. I think that any time you hand the government more power, there is always problems - union, quality, power, etc. So, I will ignore that for the purposes of this post.

Positives
It is an interesting concept. It would certainly help alleviate the unjust school funding formula that Mass employs where the Cape gets little assistance because our land simply has a high assessment. By keeping income tax, sales tax, property tax and lottery revenues on Cape, we should have more than enough to do everything Massachusetts does for us. We might even get that property tax relief Deval promised us.

It is no secret that the Cape pays out a lot more in tax & lotto revenue than we receive. I'm not sure what the amount is, but I think that we could accomplish what MA provides - social services (health, welfare, DSS, etc), lotto, roads/transportation, judicial system, government, school funding, environmental protection, state police, regulation, etc... We could even remove some of those services from state funds - ie have towns/districts pay their own costs OR go the other way, remove some administration and have one Cape-wide school district. We would have options.

As a whole, this could have some merit.

Negatives
What then are the negatives? I see a few main negatives with such a plan:

US Government Support?
I find it impossible that the US Government would acknowledge our statehood. There is no real reason for them to accept our decision. Also, the "state" we would be creating would be extremely small - not big enough on its own for a single Congressional district (though we would get one US Rep). There is no great outcry or mega-injustice that we could use to drum up national support, and the government would view acknowledging our statehood as a bad precedent to set. If they acknowledged us, they would be forced to do the same for any other town/county who did not like their level of state funding. That decision would allow towns/counties to regularly blackmail their states for more money. We would need a reason more substantial than lack of funding.

Risk of Alienating Rest of State
If we were to try to form a new state, we would be in a LOT of trouble with the rest of the state if we lost. If you think we don't get any state money NOW, just wait until an angry public cuts us off. If we were forced to crawl back to Massachusetts, we would be LUCKY to get ANY state funds. Unless US recognition was a SURE thing, this risk would much too risky.

Complications
Massachusetts owns a good amount of land on the Cape. Would they still own it after we left? I could see that becoming a mess. What about Otis?

Would every town on the Cape join? I would think that they would HAVE to for this to work. What about the Islands?

I'm sure that there are more...

Lack of Infrastructure
There is no infrastructure here. We don't have a REAL city that could serve as the capital city. Hyannis is the closest thing, but it would be the most pathetic capital in the U.S.

We have no TV stations and only the Cape Cod Times and only small local newspapers. We would be a slave to MA for communication infrastructure.

Because we are a hospitality-based area, we have very little industry and (non-hospitality based) commerce. Things like asphalt would have to be imported from Mass. I'm sure that they would not be happy to be the our industrial holding ground.

Can't Handle Things Now
To be perfectly honest, we have a hard enough time as it is right now getting things accomplished here on the Cape. The Barnstable County government has more than its share of problems. Giving them, or a similar body, the responsibility of running the "state" could prove disastrous, though the additional tax revenues could be enough to overcome this issue.

Conclusions
Even with all the negatives I found, I still think that the idea does have some (marginal) merit. At the very least, we need to keep our options open. Right now, it's not that great an idea, but should we get a real reason and then it might be worthwhile to try.

For now, we need to put REAL pressure on our elected officials to make our state funding more equitable. I know that I'm tired of paying for Boston schools and tired of Massachusetts rules requiring that we spend $10,000 per child in public schools. Officials will respond, but only if we stand up loud and strong.


What do you think?