Lets get rid of the Federal Government!

I always wanted to debate this here on the dope. Maybe just to have a hypothetical situation. After having read the debate on the Cultural Wars in the US, I would really like this to happen.

Let me state that my political persuasion is definately left of center, but I dont see any political party that shares my view. I definately vote democratic, but the thing is that there is no way any of my “radical” ideas (universal healthcare!) would get instituted across the nation.

But what really pissed me off was the fact that the rich states that vote overwhelmingly democratic have higher tax rates, because they chose to provide extra services. Lets take New York City, for example. I was in the lowest income bracket, and I paid 25 percent of my income in taxes, when I lived there. Yet, that federal money is leaving the state and is going to other states which vote for politicians which eventually screw us over in various ways by building bridges to nowhere in Alaska.

In the end, its not fair for people in places like New York, and Massachusetts who vote overwhelmingly democratic to have to pay people in other states. (like mississippi where Im from) There was a Nissan plant that was lured in through subsidies.

Why can’t we just say that we kick the federal government out of everything it does except defense and law enforcement? Anything that can be done by the states should be done by the states. What I think is most important, is that the federal government doesn’t define important aspects of daily life. It isn’t necessecary to have a federal ammendment on marriage. Why do people in Texas care about what goes on in New Jersey? I think we ought to simply say that we are different, and then go about our own business. This is similar to what is going on in the states at the moment with regards to such issues. Yet, you have politicians like Bush who use hot button issues to threaten voters in swing states, in order to gain votes. I´d be happy to see the US become something between what it is now, and what the EU is. Obviously we have a greater advantage being that we have a similar culture and language, but we are drifting apart.

In then end, I’m sick of poor states voting for politicians who make poor fiscal deciscions based on stupid issues like gay marriage. Yet they don’t have to pay for those mistakes because there are the centers of wealth in America that prop them up.

Sorry about the disjointed post, but I had to write it in a short period of time because i’m in an internet cafe. I’ll post later with something a bit more thought-out, but i just want to get the ball rolling for debate

This sounds almost libertarian. Personally, as a Libertarian, I would tend to agree with you that I think the federal government should stay out of many of the things they have their hands on, based on the 10th amendment. I think the centralization of power is a poor way to handle the current issues. As large and as diverse as this country is, it does not make sense to handle hot button issues, that are clearly very divisive, at the top level. In fact, I’m not even sure that, for many of the larger states, handling these issues at the state level is necessarily low-level enough.

As far as the suggestion, as opposed to somewhere between where the US and EU are, I’d go to a pre-civil war distribution of power (obviously, minus some of the lessons we’ve since learned, like slavery).

It’s nice in theory, but unworkable, unless you want to try to establish some kind of law that states if you move from a poorer state to a richer one for economic reasons, you have to check your conservative values at the door. If the rich states cut off money to the poor states, more conservatives would move to the rich states and try to change things there to suit them, I think. Just the way rich liberals frequently move out to the country and try to change things there. You can’t solve the culture wars by trying to sort people into little enclaves of people who just agreed with them. If you moved it down to a state level, it would just start people bitching and bickering more on a county to county level.

XaMcQ has it right. If you do this, instead of people in Massachusetts paying people in Mississippi, you’ll have people from Mississippi moving to Massachusetts. I fail to see the net gain.

This doesn’t necessarily mean this is a bad idea, just that it won’t solve the particular problem you’re talking about.

Well you could give states the right to control over who’s allowed to enter, live, work, etc in them, but then what’s the point of having a USA at all? Just have 50 small countries in a military alliance.

Perhaps something akin to an Articles of Confederation?

As a firm supporter of federalism myself, I welcome almost any losening of Washington’s grip on power. I’d like to note, however, that it isn’t the “conservatives” who are eager to hold that power in order to suck the liberal states dry, but rather the “liberals” who insist on Washington’s control of the minutest details of life at the local level that has driven the weakening of a federalist system over the years.

I’d also note that conditions in the poorer states are already starkly in contrast with those in the more wealthy states, and that doesn’t drive immigration much. People are currenlty moving from the wealthy, liberal North East to the poorer, conservative South and that’s driven as much by climate as anything else. A little reverse immigration might be a good thing for Northern states which are losing population.

Well, far be it from me to intrude on you War of the Stereotypes, but the definition of “conservative” you’re using is best associated with the days of Barry Goldwater and not anything resembling the Republican Party of the Reagan and post-Reagan years, when religious fringe groups began having a much larger influence and were downright thrilled to micro-manage “details of life”. What “details” were you thinking of; civil rights and such? Political correctness run amok? Excess corporate regulation?

And if you can point out a modern-day conservative who isn’t eager for power, elect him. Elect him ASAP.

\Bryan: Eh. I’m not going to get into a debate about what is a conservative and what is a liberal. That’s why I put those terms in quotes. The OP used “Deomcrat” and “Republican”, so go ahead and substitute that if you want. Yeah, lots of of conservatives want to regulate behavior, but this is about tax revenue and federalism, which is a product of the New Deal and came to fulll fruition under The Great Society. I think many conservatives would gladly make the bargain of keeping their moralistic legislation at the state level if they could count on the feds not regulating the shit out of them. If liberals come around to that idea, then I think it’s great. Viva federalism!

Sorry John but I have to disagree as well. Look at drug policies - it’s conservatives who are pushing the federal government to override the states. Same with gay marriages.

The bottom line is that 99% of the people who are yelling for “states rights” are people who can’t convince the federal government to do what they want. And any group that has power at the federal level drops any interest in states rights.

You are always going to be able to find individual issues that can counter my argument, but the bottom like is that the erosion of federalism was a liberal idea, not a conservative one. I disagree with conservatives on a lot of issues, but to the extent that they embrace federalism, then I agree with them on that point. The problem is, once federalism has been effectively gutted (as it was in the latter half of the 20th century), you pretty much have to pursue your agenda at the federal level whether you’re a liberal or a conservative. For instance, I really don’t think most of the folks in South Carolina care one bit whether MA has gay marraige or not, as long they don’t have to recognize it in their state. But there is a real threat that they would have to, and so you’ll find them pushing for federal legislation.

Hell, I’m not so certain it wouldn’t provide a net gain. It would allow the market to determine which states get greater representation. If poorer states, or rather states that were net drains on the treasury, found themselves shrinking in population (and therefore Congressional districts) they’d have a strong incentive to do what they could to move themselves out of ‘debtor’ status and provide strong and independent economic development without expecting others to carry the load.

I had the same thought just yesterday, but could not state is sufficiently. But I do think that the federal government has completely outgrown its mandate. It would be interesting to see the effects if local laws trumped federal laws, and not vice versa. To see the 10th amendment actually followed.

From the White House’swebsite

“The Cabinet includes the Vice President and the heads of 15 executive departments-the Secretaries of Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Labor, State, Transportation, Treasury, and Veterans Affairs, and the Attorney General. Under President George W. Bush, Cabinet-level rank also has been accorded to the Administrator, Environmental Protection Agency; Director, Office of Management and Budget; the Director, National Drug Control Policy; and the U.S. Trade Representative.”

The only departments I feel require a federal role are defense, security, state and trade. The Treasury and Justice Departments are integral roles of any government, but their scope should be limited to only those areas that require a national policy.

In regard to the rest, federal guidelines, i.e. ‘we recommend’, but not federal policies, i.e. ‘we require’, are sufficient. States and counties can then decide what to implement.

The UCC provides a good example of how to implement national legislation from the bottom up, rather than from the top down.

I would like to see a return to the United States of America, instead of the seemingly and increasingly Republic of America.

I believe government works best when concentrated at the local levels not the national level. We will still have the Daleys and other local machines, but they only effect (mostly) their respective cities, not the entire nation. If you disagree with the House of Daley, it is much easier to move than if you disagree with the House of Bush.

So you think the reason that poor states are poor is because they’re not trying hard enough to be rich?

I also have to seriously question whether reducing Federalism would have any effect on reducing government. Personally, I suspect it would have the opposite effect - instead of one big government and fifty small governments, you’d end up with one small government and fifty big governments. If the states took over the functions currently fun by the federal government, each state would have to build up its own duplicate bureaucracy - fifty Departments of Agriculture and fifty Departments of Education and fifty Departments of Labor and so on. Plus with fifty seperate but equal systems going one, each state is going to have to create a new bureaucracy to liaison with its forty nine counterparts.

And it’s not like the federal government’s going to be all that much smaller. If you exempt defense and security and state and trade, you’ve probably exempted 90% of the federal government. The entire Department of Education, for example, has less than 5000 employees. The Defense Department has about 700,000 civilian employees.

In the time before the current elections I have heard a lot of incumbent congressfolk boasting to the electorate about how they have brought such and such bridge, community center, and enormous barrel of pork to their tiny town using federal dollars. Federal elections cost too much damn money. I’m with you, at least until California gets into a nuclear standoff with Kansas.

The second paragraph is the valid criticism, but regarding the first, the state governments already have these bureacracies in place.

And I imagine most were created in response to the national departments. The feds create the dept of silly walks, the states have to do the same to monitor all the new federal regs, programs, initiatives and countless other bureacratic BS that dept. creates.

And even in spite of the feds, most states, if not all, have liasons also, or at the least a national conference where everyone touches base at least and see who has implemented what, or not implemented what and is the better for it.

I firmly believe 50-75% of government is smoke and mirrors to keep them looking busy to justify one, having an office; two, why that office should be open the whole year. The sheer number of such offices is ridiculous. And essential services get crumbs left over from the pork banquets.

I cant find a great cite on numbers of employees, but this is an interestingarticle from the Washington Post talking about the ‘hidden’ government workforce also. But that is another topic.

Apparently, it’s a very efficient department. They manage to do a huge amount of damage with so few people.

Get a group of conservatives together and they’ll tell you that the government does nothing except produce problems. Get a group of liberals together and they’ll tell you that corporations do nothing except produce problems. Don’t try and argue either group out of their beliefs - they weren’t created by facts and they won’t be eliminated by facts.