New England should secede from the United States for economic, moral and aesthetic reasons. The presidential election chaos merely confirms the fact that we are markedly different from the other 44 states. New England is at odds with mainstream America on a host of issues, ranging from the economy and education to reproductive rights and the environment, to such a degree that it would behoove us to withdraw from the union.

Economically, we lose 22 cents on every dollar sent to Washington, to the tune of more than $26 billion last year. If we were a sovereign state, that money would remain here to benefit us, not get wasted away by the bungling bureaucrats in Washington.

If we were to take one-fourth of the $26 billion as a tax cut (roughly $6.5 billion, or $1,000 per taxpayer), conservatives would be happy. Take another quarter for defense (roughly 1.2 percent of our gross domestic product, or about the same as Germany, Canada, Belgium, Switzerland and Denmark). Take the remaining $13 billion and fully fund all the social programs that go lacking because we need to beg Washington to give us our own money back (universal healthcare for every New Englander?), and the liberals would rejoice. Everyone would benefit, prosperity would be spread equitably, no one would lose (except, of course, the recipient states in the remaining 44 United States that we have been subsidizing). They need us, we don’t need them.

As an independent nation of 13.4 million people, we would rank just above Belgium, Greece, Hungary and Ecuador in terms of population, with a land area twice that of Austria and Ireland, quadruple Switzerland and Denmark, and about half of Finland and the United Kingdom. Our GDP of $501.8 billion is more than Taiwan and Australia, and nearly equal to Spain, South Korea and Canada. We have 1,648 cities and towns spread across 67 counties in the six states. Taken in aggregate as a nation, rather than a half dozen small states with diminishing political clout stuck up in a corner of the United States, and the numbers are impressive.

It is long past time to formalize our regional differences from mainstream America in an official sense. All that we lack is the political will to make the independent sovereign Republic of New England reality.

Glenn L. Harmon Jr.

Georgetown