The irony is that in 2028, a state with the same population as Canada might hold a referendum about leaving America. This trade dispute just might push California over the edge, and I am not talking about earthquakes.
and more recently
https://theharvardpoliticalreview.com/calexit-california-independence/
If America is so out of control and beyond the reach of the Rule of Law and the Constitution that it can elect Trump (recall that he is considered to be potentially a traitor to the Constitution by the Supreme Court), then it is definitely within the realm of possibility that California could separate.
This is dumb, making any part of Canada a state would bring a laundry list of unfunded liabilities such as universal healthcare, retirement benefits etc. etc. The same goes for California, I doubt Canada wants to pick up the liabilities for Social Security benefits.
In Canada when a budget doesn’t pass, the government doesn’t shut down. Instead all of the politicians are fired and they face an election where they have to explain to the voters why they couldn’t do their fucking jobs and pass a goddamn budget.
The US would have to make significant changes to their political system so it doesn’t suck. Also change to the Canadian flag, the US flag is tacky as fuck.
I’m referring to outstanding unfunded liabilities. I never referred to the budgeting process.
People aren’t liabilities. Thinking this way is why US doesn’t really have healthcare. Healthcare is a service, not a liability.
Do you consider infrastructure and the legal system to be liabilities because the budget of these things scale with the population size? Or are they just things the government is supposed to do?
So anyway, I don’t want to live in a country that thinks my health is a liability.
Morally you are right but fiscal reality is, both governments are going to take on a lot of unfunded liabilities that don’t mix well with their current financial structure. Making the talk of absorbing parts of Canada into the US or Canada taking on California or other states a moot point. No population is going to give up their current benefits.
Yeah I think you’re confusing countries with businesses. Any analysis from the perspective of a country being a business is inherently wrong.
Thinking money is real and people are abstractions has things totally the wrong way around.
If what you were saying were true, there would still be a separate West Germany and East Germany.
The reasons for Canada not being a part of the US or California separating from the US or it not making sense for California to be part of Canada has nothing to do with liabilities.
I never said countries should be run like business. But they do have to be run responsibly. You can print money out of thin air… but print too much and you’ll have inflation print waaay to much and you’ll have hyper inflation. Investing tax dollars in a sector that brings in income is a great way to boost revenue. But focusing on one industry like oil production or AI will hurt other parts of the economy.
I very much doubt Canadians would give up their free healthcare or retirement. Which means the US would suddenly need to take on even larger amounts of debt to fund it. Taxpayers in the other 50 states would not want to foot the bill so that one new state could have free healthcare when they do not.
So yes you are right governments don’t need to be run like businesses. But they do have their fiscal limits as well. Germany spent A LOT of money over two decades integrating East and West Germany. But they had a common culture. While I think America and Canada have similar cultures they aren’t nearly as close as Germany’s.
This talk of integrating parts of either country is stupid because it fiscally
tax payers are only going to support so much.
Or… pay taxes?
Healthcare costs an average of around $8K per capita per year in most developed countries. The US pays around $14K per year because a bunch of companies gotta make that profit I guess. $8K is significant chunk of the average person’s taxes, but healthcare is a valuable service so it’s worth it.
You seem upset that I’m saying that you’re thinking about government like a business, but you really are. You can’t fathom pay taxes for important services, but that is how it works in most countries. And most people are paying ~$8K in taxes per year for healthcare, while Americans are paying ~$14K per year in health insurance and medical bills.
Again, you seem have forgotten tax revenue is a thing.
Also Canada’s debt to GDP ratio is lower than the US. So it would be Canada assuming US debt burden, not the other way around.
Yeah… there are some things more important than money. Not everyone makes every decision based solely on finances.
Yeah, Americans can only think in terms of money while Canadians consider other things (like our sovereignty) to be more important than money. Americans struggle to understand this, which is why we’re currently in a trade war.
You seem to be very passionate about this subject. Twice now you have invented arguments around subjects that I never mentioned in my comments and you have assumed I have a stance on a subject that I do not have. You may want to take a moment to calm down and re-evaluate what I’m actually stating before replying.
I never mentioned taxes in my comment. But I do think America’s current fiscal problems are easily solved by tax increases. Rolling the tax rate back to where it was 20 or 30 years ago and removing the Social Security earnings cap is entirely feasible and would largely solve the current fiscal problem. It just takes political will which is only now starting to form on the left.
I’ve stated repeatedly that government is not a business. You seem to use this as a diversion to dance around my statements pointing out that neither counties citizens will want to give up benefits that would be largely unfunded if they switched to another country.
Social security has funds set aside to keep it solvent. I don’t know anything about Canadian benefits but even if they are entirely funded by tax receipts, those mechanisms for taxation would have to be replicated. I’m very familiar with the tax differences between the US and Canada and the US has no current mechanism to collect GST, HST and PST. I doubt your internal systems could be quickly adapted to our tax code either. There would be a period of time while these processes were normalized likely meaning that the host country would need to foot the bill while the tax codes were aligned.
I also very much doubt the new host country would assume any of the debt from the old country. States are not responsible for Federal debt in the US. I’m only assuming the same applies to provinces in Canada.
As far as your comments on money, I hate to break it to you but if Americans cared about money in the way you stated it we would probably not have the debt we have today. As far as sovereignty, have you seen the amount of flags we have everywhere? Have you seen our news where “buy American” rhetoric is constantly in US news. I’ve travels the world and the US is one of the most nationalistic countries I’ve seen.
The honest answer to your trade statement is most Americans don’t care or know about the trade war with Canada. If they do then they likely don’t support it. I’m not a supporter of Mango Mussolini and the fact that he doubled the price of the hardwood floors I’m buying because of the tariffs piss me off. Not to mention everything else that has gotten more expensive because of his policies.
I’m mostly pointing out the cultural differences with my past comments. The left in Canada seems to have this vehemently “we aren’t America” jingoistic pride. Where as in the US it’s mostly a right wing thing and it generally revolves around jokes about invading or making some other country the 51st state. Although that is changing and there seems to be a sense on both sides of the aisle that we don’t want to involve ourselves in foreign wars or conflicts of any kind. Personally I’d rather not shed American blood or treasure for any more foreign conflicts.
There are a lot of differences between the two countries that I could spend a lot of time diving into but I think the two populations are far enough apart in culture that integration would not work like Germany who was united prior to WW2 with a common culture and history. We have none of that.
You sound like an accountant.
No, just a realist.
And it would burden Canada with a share of your $40 trillion debt. No thank you.
Maybe, but it’s hypothetical. The point is neither side really wants to inherit the liabilities that would go along with integration. You aren’t going to just convince that population to go with out free healthcare or their social security either.