BREXIT Just Happened...

So, how does the PM vote work? Is it put to the electorate or the Parliament?

Since the Conservative Party still holds a majority in the parliament the matter of a new PM is settled by an in-house election at the next Conservative Party Conference in October. This PM then holds office until the next general election but chances are a general election might be called sooner rather than later, especially given the current climate and divisions in society.

Theresa May is the safest pair of hands. Michael Gove is *** HATED by many on both political wings so his chances are laughable, and the others would need to seek support from UKIP to stand a chance and UKIP's name is mud with the electorate now given their backtracking. All Theresa May would have to do is say she would not invoke Article 50 and put the motion to the parliament, boom; votes from both left and right wings who are pro-EU. Theresa wins in a landslide and redeems the Conservative Party. This might actually bring about a closer co-operation between left and right wings in British politics, that only helps.

Jeremy Corbyn is not leadership material. Sadiq Khan is but he is currently the Mayor of London.

"Do you remember the 5th of November, gunpowder treason and plot?"

Johnson was set up to take the fall much like Guy Fawkes was. Only difference was the Guy believed in what he was doing.

Corbyn is great, if you're so naive to think he's a poor leader then I don't know what to say, he has support from most of the major unions, a large amount of the Labour membership and just has the old Blairites stabbing him in the back, now they've done him a favour and resigned, the Labour party will be more unified.

There is already rumblings of dissenting MPs being deselected.

Since the Brexit vote there has been much talk of a Texit.

But Texas, like almost all of the red states, is a welfare state, reviving far more federal $ than they pay in federal taxes.

King, how many $ would the nation save if Texas succeeded? You, of all people here, should be able to figure that out. Remember the base closings too ...

Not True

On the state level alone, the State of Texas gave the US government $1.7 billion more than they received. And that's just on the state level.

If you include federal revenue received from Texas Citizens, that's well over $1 trillion dollars.

Stop receive all of your information from snopes and huffpost!

But what you are talking about is a super minority of the people. Nowhere near the proportion of UK.

And just moving the military money out of Texas makes Texas a "welfare state" by a large margin: http://www.thetexaseconomy.org/economic-outlook/economy/media/98-986_TexasMilitaryInstallations.pdf

And if Texas was all of a sudden not a part of the USA a lot of companies would be moving elsewhere. I know Pizza Hut is in TX, I imagine quite a number of big companies are as well.

Texas gains a whole lot from being part of the USA, it wouldn't do nearly as well standing on its own, though at least as long as the oil lasts they'd do better than any other southern state.

I'm sorry, but the State of Texas does not maintain nor fund military bases.

The only aspect that federal military bases have on Texas in increased economy due to the military spending money (personnel or the base itself). If you were to take the economic impact of the military bases away from Texas, the state income impact would only be about $11 billion ($148.91 billion times .075% (the average state Franchise Tax for businesses, assuming that the economic impact is only business related and not individual related)). You also have to factor in the reduced money that the State gives to the federal government for military funding as part of their share of such funding, and also include the more than $1 trillion of federal income taxes still collected by individuals and businesses and Texas is still by far not a welfare state. Only California gives more in federal income taxes than Texas. New York is a close third.

I am not arguing against that. All I'm arguing against is the notion that Texas is a "welfare state" which is completely incorrect. Even if Texas were to leave the union, both Texas and the federal government would be greatly hurt by such events.

And that's just the economic standpoint. Political and Social standpoints would be just as bad.

Precisely. All the military bases (15 of them) in Texas are Federal tax dollars, that employ more than 255k people in Texas who pay taxes, spend money, etc.


You're going to have to go into more specifics about how you got to the economic impact is only $11 billion considering the source I linked states it's $150 billion in economic impact.

I'm also not going through that PDF you linked above to try and find your $1 trillion number. I can find that Texas in fiscal year 2012 paid $212 billion in gross taxes to the federal government, but I'm not seeing where the rest of that $800 billion is coming from.

If $212 B is what Texas sends the federal government and it gets $155 B in federal military spending you can see how quickly they'd flip into the "welfare state" category without the military bases, though...


I'd agree that Texas is at least one of the weakest offenders when it comes to the "welfare state" moniker, and I'd say that the main benefit to Texas ever leaving is it might get the south to leave too, and those are the true states holding us back from being a happy, hippy liberal country, as well as the biggest drains on the federal coffers.

I did, you just decided to skip that part:


Remember, we are talking about Texas being a "welfare" state, meaning that they receive more money from the federal government than they give to the federal government. Not the overall economic impact of Texas leaving the union.

You really like to skim/gloss over posts, don't you:

Citizens in this case are the revenues collected by both the people of Texas and the businesses of Texas. What you are referring to is the money the state gives to the government, but not the people.

Again, Texas is not a "welfare state." I can keep proving it to you, but somehow, with your skimming tendencies, you will just ignore it.

If Texas is a welfare state by any of the definitions, then so is every other state in the union.

Also, I forgot to include the sales taxes part. That ranges anywhere between 6% to 10.5%, depending on the county in question.

But you're missing what the economic impact I was citing means. That $155 billion is the economic impact of having those military bases there. Which means that's how much it adds to the state economy via taxes, sales, private sector contracts, etc.

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/headlines/20120805-texas-can-no-longer-complain-that-it-gives-more-than-it-gets-from-federal-government.ece

This article seems to disagree with the notion that Texas isn't a welfare state, as well.

Income tax values: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_tax_revenue_by_state

Texas $219,459,878,000

That's the federal income tax paid by Texas citizens. So no, it's not what the state itself gives to the government, that's income taxes.

And sales taxes are purely to the state, not to the federal government, so that money doesn't go to the federal government and thus cannot be figured.

So unless somehow all the companies in Texas are paying $800 billion in federal corporate taxes I don't see how you're able to make the claim that Texas accounts for 1/4 of the entire federal revenue.

Texas is listed around 30th place in the "welfare state" ranking, with 1 being the least welfare state. So yeah...Texas isn't majorly ahead of the pack when it comes to that.

The next Con leader must be a brexitier. Period. Don't know why Jeremy (C)unt is even bothering to stand for leadership. I see Gove winning, all politicians are hated, but he led the brexit campaign unlike Mother Theresa who hid at some church praying.

Labour is a mess. Corbyn is not PM material. Period. He's not leader material! If your own MPs have no faith in him that's saying something! He may resemble Dumbledore, but he's not. Labour won't win the next general election. During the referendum none of the labour mps voiced out on behalf of their core voters except a handful, Gisele comes to mind. Sadiq Khan is a downright liar, didn't he promise to freeze on London transportation.... Turned out to be a lie, he's a Solictor so lying is second nature for him.

We will need a general election, all the parties are in a mess, Cameron buggering off... So much for "Brits don't quit". All the parties need to get their act together, get brexitiers as their leaders, have a new general election and we'll take it there.

Confirmed, we are talking about 2 separate issues.

Until you come to me with an argument that Texas is a welfare state, I'm just going to ignore you because I already stated I agree with you on the economic impact of leaving the union, which includes military bases.

There are more taxes than individual and corporate income taxes.

There are also O&G taxes, which Texas is the 2nd largest contributor towards (North Dakota being the 1st), Obamacare taxes (surprise surprise, your wiki doesn't include that), and various other taxes associated with it. Also, wiki even admitted that the tax collections aren't even accurate on the individual level since it's just an estimate based by IRS data.

Also, I would love to see this "Texas is listed around 30th place in the 'welfare state'" source of yours, because I'm sure they are only figuring what is given to the state and not what the state supplies on itself or gives back to the government.

Texas have the ability to refuse money from the federal government, but that would be incredibly stupid to do because who refuses free money to help pay for bills?

Also, you seem to like to use outdated information for some reason.....

Military Bases aren't welfare for states....

Those things have actual defense value and the DoD is constantly looking to shut them down and consolidate units to lower O&M costs. The Air Force in particular is very fond of their big budget weapons programs and likes to find new and interesting ways to fund them.

Texas is a good choice for Military bases due to how much open land it was that was easily developed. Both Fort Hood and Fort Bliss are miniature cities.

Two comments here.

1, I used to have a friend named Tex who came from Texas*. Back during the Iran - Contra scandal he maintained that since Nicaragua was an armed society, rather like we are, we needed to prepare for an invasion from the south. "So you are claiming that Texas is the soft underbelly of the United States?"

Texas obviously needs all those bases to protect itself from invasion....

2, All federal spending in a state, necessary or not, must be counted. Were I to look at Oregon I would have to include all the monies spent on national and federal forests, national parks and recreation areas, national range lands, as well as federal funds spent fighting wildfires.

*I had another friend named Tex but he came from Brooklyn.

Makes zero sense ... like might as well discuss the color of the sky...


Each base serves a function, they aren't turret emplacements to defend your plant garden. They tend to serve as training facilities, materials storage, developmental faculties, marshaling grounds, troops headquarters and so forth.

Fort Hood for example is one of the largest Military Bases in the USA and home to III Corps. 1st Cav Division, 3rd ACR and a host of other deployable units. The population of this base is over 53,000 people. That's a city.

Fort Bliss is another huge base, it's the second largest base, by physical size, with the Missile testing range being the largest. The population is only ~8,000 as the base is primarily used for training, testing and storage of Army vehicles.

Fort Knox used to hold a ton of units but most have since been relocated. Instead it's now the home of Human Resource Command (HRC) which is like a military wide HR department responsible for all personal actions and assignment management. It's also the home for the US Army Recruiting Command (USAREC), this is the people in charge of recruitment and retention of all personal in the US Army.

Fort Bragg is well known as it's the home of the 18th Airborne Corps, Special Operations Command (SOCOM), along with a bunch of smaller units. It's the most populated base with more then 50,000 people.

There are plenty more, each with a designated purpose.

The tables did turn. After the UK watched what its colonies did to the Native American and Australian peoples, and realised they had their own massive immigration problem... They realized hey! There's been a pattern! CLOSE THE GATES!!! Just ask Native Americans and Aboriginals how immigration worked out for them after all!

So because you misread my earlier quote you're going to ignore my argument, based on data, about the $155 Billion in economic impact from the US military on the state? Good...

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/05/which-states-are-givers-and-which-are-takers/361668/

That has Texas at 32 of 50 states, lower being a worse return on tax dollars spent. Texas is in the bottom half.

And I'd love to see your source on O&G taxes and Obamacare taxes being anywhere CLOSE to $800 BILLION to reach your $1 trillion number you've cited multiple times here. Especially because:

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/what-are-sources-revenue-federal-government-0


This means that even if the estimation for Texas is low and they contribute around $250 billion from income taxes, they likely only contribute another $50 billion from other tax sources, putting Texas at $300 billion in overall federal taxes, which is nowhere close to $1 trillion a year.

And yes, some of my information is a bit outdated, do you have any more up to date information that can show things being completely different than my information? Would love to see the data that quadruples Texas tax contribution, for example.


You are correct in that they aren't welfare. But they are economic contribution from the federal government of which would be lost if Texas were to leave the United States. As such when you're talking about how strong a states budget is you need to take out all the benefits it receives from outside sources, which in this case is a whole lot of military spending.

The universe never misses an opportunity at Irony

First Cameron and now Farage. It seems like a lot of politicians are trying to escape what is about to come.

Thank God... I'd not normally condone stepping down from a s- storm you helped create. But in the case of Farage, I'd make an exception!

More market turmoil more after Tuesday industry (lack of) growth reports

Brexit Shocks Push the Pound to Fresh 31-Year Low @ below $1.28

Two commercial property funds have been suspended in successive days and more are expected to follow.

Agreed. Cameron, Johnson, Farage and now Gove all abandoning ship. I can already see where this is going. Things will get so bad before October that Theresa May will make putting Article 50 to a parliamentary vote a policy of hers should she get elected. May will win. Article 50 is crushed in a landslide and Britain remains in the EU.

There will be blood in the streets. If you thought Brixton and the London Riots were bad wait till you get a load of this ***.

Theresa May is now the Prime Minister of the UK.

Of all the candidates we were facing the prospect of she is the safest pair of hands I would say. Left wing calling for a general election... laughable, they haven't even got their own house in order.

Who was Jean Monnet?

That, is why the European Union must fall.