Should metro Atlanta secede?
April 3, 2008 at 12:45 pm by Thomas Wheatley in NewsCL Columnist John Sugg raised the question with some local thinkers and officials last year. In Long Island, neighbor of New York City and childhood home of a dysfunctional starlet, a group of academics are conducting a six-month study to see if it should become the 51st state.
Looking to whack Albany with a political two-by-four, Suffolk Comptroller Joseph Sawicki and Dowling College agreed to launch a new feasibility study on the economics of Long Island seceding to become the 51st state.
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Both Sawicki and Cantor acknowledged such a split may be tough to sell politically to the rest of the state, but it is important to raise the issue to underline how much the region contributes to state operations and how much less it gets back — a gap of $2.9 billion.
“It’s time for us to begin to think outside the box. In our case, it’s that sandbox in Albany that we must look beyond,” said Sawicki, adding later, “If we were getting our fair share of education aid from the state, we wouldn’t be here talking about this.”
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