Recent petitions and referendums have present America with an opportunity to stimulate the economy. There are petitions from all fifty states to peacefully exit the Union, and there is a referendum in Puerto Rico to join the United States.
Here is my plan to stimulate the U.S. Economy through flag making.
The first step is to mandate that ALL American flags be made in America. This is important and you will see why.
We allow states to leave the Union one by one in an very orderly fashion. First, as Texas leaves the Union, we will now have 49 states and a need to replaces all those 50 star flags with 49 star flags. While considering Alabama’s request to leave the Union, we will have to deliberate long enough for the new 49 star flags to be manufactured and shipped. After the new 49 star flag are safely raised at ever elementary school in America, we allow Alabama to leave the Union. The even newer 48 star flags are mandated, and American workers go back to making the Stars and Stripes. Shipping companies are working over time to deliver the flags to every VFW post in America.
Here is were it gets a bit tricky to manage. We don't want to leave a combination of stars that allows the reuse of an old flags, so, we will have to allow BOTH Idaho and Alaska to leave the Union at the same time, now reducing the flag to 46 stars, before admitting Puerto Rico into the Union and raising it back up to 47.
Somewhere around this point, entrepreneurs in Texas will realize that they are missing out on a lucrative business opportunity to manufacture American flags and the state of Texas will ask to be re-admitted to the Union so that they can take advantage of flag making.
I am thinking we will need a sophisticated algorithm to manage the number of stars on the flag to minimize the reuse of flags and maximize profits, but Yankee ingenuity, I am sure, will seize the day! I further imagine that at some point there will be a time when no stars are left on the flag, and the Stars and Stripes will be replaced with a picture of the Washington D.C. Olympic Race-walking team, but imagine the sales THAT will generate on eBay? :-0
American, at near full employment, will be humming away making and delivering American flags for a generation, and our future will be bright.
[Edited to fix a couple of typos. As much as I kind of like 're-emitted' in reference to Texas, I changed it to the more correct 're-admitted', and I corrected a 'starts' to 'stars'.]