Free Liberty's Last Stand by Stephen Coonts Page A

Soetoro is ripping up the American Constitution and there are a large number of people in Texas who would rather fight than submit. Lincoln must have had similar feelings when he watched the Southern states pass secession resolutions. We’re headed for a smash and I haven’t a clue what to do about it.”
    â€œMaybe Ben Steiner is right. Texas should become its own country.”
    Jack Hays snorted. “Texas will become a nation over Barry Soetoro’s dead body. If he lets Texas go, a lot of other states will follow. Why should people who work for a living pay taxes to provide welfare to all those rats in the center cities? Explain that one to me.”
    â€œExtortion?”
    â€œPay or we’ll burn it down and live in the ashes. The only people who worry about that kind of logic are politicians.”
    â€œTexas could make it as an independent nation,” Nadine said, eyeing her husband.
    â€œHorseshit. American dollars are our currency—”
    â€œIssue your own currency, backed by the state’s full faith and credit. That’s easy enough.”
    â€œHundreds of thousands of people rely on Social Security and federal and military retirement. We can’t abandon them. Without those pensions—”
    â€œTexas can assume those obligations.”
    He stared at her.
    Nadine took another sip of Chardonnay, then said, “If people paid income and Social Security taxes to Texas instead of the federal government, and if Texas didn’t have the federal debt to service, I suspect that the finances would be pretty close to a wash. Dollar for dollar, in and out. Texas could guarantee U.S. government bonds held by Texas banks and pension funds. If you made welfare recipients who are able-bodied work for their check or forfeit it, that would help a bundle. And make welfare recipients take a drug test. You know, straight out of Charlie Swim’s platform. No more money for single women to have kids.”
    She leaned forward, pleading her case. “Texas has energy to sell to the world, a great banking system, world-class hospitals, automobile factories, cutting-edge high-tech industries, a solid agricultural base, and we’re on the Gulf Coast so we can import and export. Texas has an annual GDP of 1.6 trillion dollars. That is a larger economy than the state of New York, just a little less than California. Texas generates roughly ten percent of the economic activity in the United States. Our Texas economy is a third larger than Mexico’s, just ten percent behind the United Kingdom’s. If Texas were an independent nation, ours would be the twelfth-largest economy on earth, a smidgen less than Canada, but more than Australia, Spain, or Switzerland. And you think Texas couldn’t go it alone?”
    Jack Hays eyed his wife coldly. “I didn’t know you were an independence crackpot.”
    â€œI’m not. But the people of Texas will not live in a dictatorship. Will not .”
    â€œThe United States won’t let us go without a fight.”
    â€œWe’re heading for a fight regardless,” Nadine said flatly. “Even if independence isn’t your end game, it might give you leverage to demand a return to constitutional government on the federal level. Texas has a hell of a lot better hand than you think.”
    Jack Hays took a swig from his drink and sat staring at his wife. “We could seal the border,” he suggested. “Demand the Mexican government stop allowing drug smugglers and illegals to cross. We could seal the border so tight a bat couldn’t get across.”
    Nadine put her hand on his arm. “Sure you could, but you’d need to make it clear that no one is against immigration per se , from Mexico or anywhere else. The problem is illegal immigrants; they’re swarming in faster than we can absorb them in the schools or in the labor force or with social services. When illegal, unskilled laborers flood