While the devil in such things is always in the details, I think we can agree on a few fundamental skunkwork rules:
- With very few exceptions the federal government would have no say whatsoever about what happens in Pacifica.
- No federal taxes would be paid by Pacifica residents,
- No federal money would flow from Washington to finance Pacifica's operations or infrastructure.
- Residents of the three states would continue paying their usual state taxes but the federal tax would be replaced by a tax to fund Pacifica's skunk works activities. (The only money Pacifica would send to the IRS would be payment for direct services negotiated and contracted by Pacifica with the feds.)
- Pacifica would pay Washington an annual fee to cover Pacifica's share of national defense.
How would Pacifica be governed? What role governors and state legislatures play? Would the Pacifica skunkworks need an over all “board of directors” comprised of representatives from industry, banking, government, healthcare and citizen-members representing the interests of environmental, youth, the aged and workers, etc? How would such board members be selected/elected? How would we keep the corrupting influence of big money from perverting the whole process? All good questions that would each require the right answer.
I would argue that it was a dynamic form of skunkworks that created the late, great US of A in the first place. Of course, they didn't call it a skunkworks. It was called “the Wild West.” But it functioned exactly in the way a skunkworks is intended to function. The entrenched federal forces exercised only the most tenuous control over what settlers west of the Mississippi were up to. Instead settlers experimented with what I call “wild cat innovation.” They made plenty of mistakes but, since their lives often depended on finding sustainable solutions, they eventually did, and those "proofs of concept" working solutions were later institutionalized.
Once the Union was complete and railroads and telegraph installed, the Wild West Skunkworks was shut down. One could argue that it was at that moment the seeds of stagnation began to germinate.
I only propose such a radical (and unlikely) proposition because I am at loss to come up with anything short of that. I've exhausted my last gram of faith or hope that the current two-party farce will -- or even can any longer -- function for the common good.
I would argue that it was a dynamic form of skunkworks that created the late, great US of A in the first place. Of course, they didn't call it a skunkworks. It was called “the Wild West.” But it functioned exactly in the way a skunkworks is intended to function. The entrenched federal forces exercised only the most tenuous control over what settlers west of the Mississippi were up to. Instead settlers experimented with what I call “wild cat innovation.” They made plenty of mistakes but, since their lives often depended on finding sustainable solutions, they eventually did, and those "proofs of concept" working solutions were later institutionalized.
Once the Union was complete and railroads and telegraph installed, the Wild West Skunkworks was shut down. One could argue that it was at that moment the seeds of stagnation began to germinate.
I only propose such a radical (and unlikely) proposition because I am at loss to come up with anything short of that. I've exhausted my last gram of faith or hope that the current two-party farce will -- or even can any longer -- function for the common good.
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