Would Texas have to buy out federal assets inside its borders?

The federal property inside Texas is one item on a negotiating table where Texas holds strong cards, not a check Texas writes blind. Some assets transfer, some get leased, some are paid for, and all of it gets weighed against the much larger claims Texas brings to the same table.

This is a settlement, not a shopping bill

When a country becomes independent, the predecessor's property inside its borders is settled by negotiation, the way every modern separation has handled it. The outcomes are a familiar menu: transfer to Texas, a long-term lease, joint operation under an agreement, or a payment in some cases. The honest answer is that the federal property transition, military bases, federal buildings, federal land, is negotiated under a treaty and will involve some Texas payment, some lease, and some transfer. It is a line in a negotiation, not a number anyone hands Texas in advance.

Texas brings far bigger claims to the same table

A buyout is never a one-way invoice, because both sides owe each other. On one side, the federal property inside Texas. On the other, what Washington owes Texans: an accrued Social Security and Medicare claim on the order of $7.7 trillion, plus Texas's standing in any debt settlement. Federal assets get netted against those claims, not paid for in isolation. A balance-sheet reckoning weighs federal land, bases, and reserves against the debt and the benefits, and the assets Texas receives offset the obligations it is asked to assume.

The functioning assets stay functioning

Nobody benefits from shuttering a working facility. The bases keep operating, most likely under a mutual-defense arrangement or status-of-forces agreement, the same way the United States already operates hundreds of bases on the soil of allied nations. A VA hospital keeps treating veterans. A research center keeps doing its work. The value of these assets is that they run, and the negotiation is built to keep them running, not to scatter them.

Texas already paid for much of it

Remember whose money built and maintained the federal footprint in Texas. Texans have funded the federal government for generations, including the agencies and installations on Texas soil. Federal grants that get counted as "Washington's spending in Texas" often required Texas to put up matching funds, so Texans paid for part of it a second time. The framing of Texas as a buyer writing a fresh check ignores that Texans already financed much of what is inside their own borders.

The bottom line

Federal assets in Texas are settled at the negotiating table, transferred, leased, or netted against the far larger claims Texas brings, not bought blind. The functioning ones keep functioning, and Texans already paid for much of what is there.