Splitting Washington State

Splitting Washington State

Bob Larson
Bob Larson
I'm Bob Larson. A pair of state lawmakers are suggesting we split Washington in half and make Eastern Washington a separate state ... called Liberty.

Republican Representatives Matt Shea and Bob McCaslin pre-filed the House Joint Memorial 4000 bill for 2017, which points out the drastic differences between many in the eastern part of the state compared to a more liberal west side ...

MATT SHEA ... "The bottom line here in Eastern Washington is we always here that there is one Washington, and yet really there are two Washingtons. I think a lot of people here on the east side of the mountains feel that their values and their belief systems are ignored and, especially cattle ranchers and farmers, are very upset about being dictated to on how they run their cattle ranches and farms from the west side of the state."

Shea says for some on the west side it's "out of sight, out of mind," but too many don't take the concerns of east siders seriously ...

MATT SHEA ... "It's also very interesting that the 'Daily Coast,' 'the Stranger' have come out in support of this idea, albeit in a more sarcastic manner by saying that us on the east side of the state are a bunch of welfare freeloaders and that we somehow wouldn't be able to make it with our current tax base if we decided to split the state."

Shea says that's not true because every tax dollar paid would be spent in the state of Liberty instead of losing so much to the west side, and the same size and scope of bloated government wouldn't exist.

Congress hasn't created a new state out of an existing state since the Civil War, when West Virginia was carved out of Virginia.

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