@MontereyJack,
No actually we don't get $2.03 back from every dollar we pay. There just happens to be enormous defense expenditures in a small population and relatively poor state so government expenditures exceed private commerce and industry. Because the money is spent here does not necessarily mean that all of it benefits the people here. But the various installations and industries would still need to be manned--they would just be converted to private sector industry--so I don't think there would necessarily be as much loss of jobs as you anticipate.
It is true that New Mexico is nowhere nearly as self-sufficient as Texas, but we do grow enough food crops and beef and chicken and pork and mutton to feed our population easily plus vast coal, oil, and natural gas reserves for income to import what we else we need,
And assuming that New Mexico would be most likely to secede in tandem with Texas, we would have an immediate ally or could work out agreement to form our own new country. (I'm assuming Texas would probably insist on retaining its name, but since a chunk of NM was once part of Tejas, we aren't as emotionally attached to our name.)
So anyway, as a hypothetical, we know what Lincoln and his Congress did when the Southern States seceded in protest of US policy. What would Obama and the current Congress do facing the same kind of problem?
