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Comment by snazypaparazzi | Hacker News Reader

The Federal government enforces a few rules and then leaves things to the state and people. Obviously that means the state and people have no nanny to protect them from consequences of their decisions. If they drain their budgets fighting the civil rights of their population instead of fixing a problem then they might look like a lot of bankrupt municipalities. The US is obligated to let that happen.

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> If they drain their budgets

If Texas seceded from the US (which there is an actual movement here that gets loud with Democrat presidents) it would be the 8th or 9th largest economy in the world. The oil propping up the US while the US admin is/was grifting large paychecks for friends and family with the Iran thing -- comes from Texas. No one posting words online then getting payouts is going to bankrupt them.

This kind of private income is not necessarily going to result in much improvement in municipality income, it can be used to reduce municipality income i.e. by political contributions to bills like California Prop 13.

I would be a bit skeptical that civil rights violations over the web would be enough to bankrupt many municipalities but I think it is the larger point of no State laws or system of accountability for any of the things an official may do.. Some officials choose liquid investments or select large civil projects, etc.

I'm very happy with the possibility of Texas leaving the union. Anyone who isn't Texan should focus on leaving Texas to its rights with acceptance of as little liability for Texas as possible. Texas can fix itself or not, not my problem.

Not really. The federal government bails Texas out of the messes they get themselves into all the time (like their shitty power grid). Historically, Texas has often received more in federal funding than it contributes in federal taxes.

Sure, most of the South is in a hypocritical position of claiming to want the federal system I described, I want them to get it..

People are arguing with you as if you’re not making the same point they are, amusing

Is the Texas power grid shitty? Say, compare to California’s?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Texas_power_crisis was pretty notable.

it's that texas has it's own power grid. Other states tend to share grids.

Yes. Both are shitty, but CA is at least shared with the national grid.

> The federal government bails Texas out of the messes they get themselves into all the time (like their shitty power grid)

What (federal) bailout did Texas receive for the power grid? Unless something changed, Texas refuses fed help for the power grid because it wants to stay independent. Texas bailed itself out of the 2021 power grid failure with a couple/few billion dollars that Texas pays for. And while not great, Texas refused hundreds of millions in federal money to shore up flood protections, which came to light last year. Texas is not your typical southern state that takes and does nothing for itself.

https://www.fox26houston.com/news/texas-gets-60-million-in-f...

https://casar.house.gov/media/press-releases/news-federal-go...

Did you read those sources? The $60 million is not bail out type money specifically designed for getting Texas out of its "own messes", it's a grant from the Infrastructure bill [0].

Those links are a country wide program that benefits the whole of the US, which Texas is sill a part of. Even with a very generous acceptance of your proof, 60 million is nothing compared to the 2.5 billion Texas funded themselves to shore up their independent grid. They won't take bail out type money because they refuse to accept federal oversight that comes with it.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrastructure_Investment_and_...

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