As I mentioned in the OP, I think that the states-as-laboratories concept is an awful idea in practice, insofar as it means that states will be trying out different things in the hopes of finding what works and having it be adopted, eventually, on a state level nationwide.
You said laboratories of democracy, not laboratories of policy. Cannot a democratic society have honest disagreements about policy? And why do things have to be adopted, eventually, at the federal level. As Liberal pointed out, there isn’t necessarily one and only one solution to every problem.
Of course. Isn’t that the point of the OP?
Not to be glib, but where did I say they did?
Not to be glib, but where did I say there was?
I really will respond more substantively soon – these drive-by responses are far easier when I’m at work than addressing the more complex points that people are making.
And yet when I offered one policy idea (healthcare) you simply igmored it and went back to the “laboratories as democracy” idea. Surely healthcare policy is not an essential part of democracy-- ie, an element without which democracy crumbles. Perhaps I’ll wait to post further until you have time to offer some examples of policies you are willing to leave up to the states. Right now the concept you’re advocating is too abstract.
Would you mind explaining how it is that my post did not address the OP while the post to which I responded, and of which you did not complain, did? Its themes were basic needs, disadvantages, and central planning for schools to which I responded point by point. Was there something compelling you to single me out while leaving the boiler plate socialist dogma to which I responded uncommented? I explained how the central plan of a federal government is more onerous than the central plan of one of fifty states, and cited an example — No Child Left Behind — of its disaffectation. If you want to be the ring master in a circus of animals who jump through your hoops, perhaps you should start your own board.
Of course the feds print money. My point was that they cannot just print more money when they need some. This was what you seemed to be implying.
Now you’ve changed your tune and instead are saying that the fed can run huge deficits and states cannot. This is untrue. California has been running what can certainly be called a “huge” deficit for some time now. The federal government is larger in scope than state governments, of course. But, both can and do run deficits from time to time.
The taxes I’ve paid so far are for a building permit and land. My house could be either a shack or a palace. The price up to this point would have been exactly the same. (In interests of full disclosure: It’s a duplex, so I’ve paid double on the “improvement fees” required for my building permit.
Sure. But, that’s another thread.
Nope. It’s not for us to decide. The constitution lays it all out nicely what powers go to the feds and what goes to the states. It’s gotten us this far, we need to stick with what it says.
Lib’s perfectly capable of defending himself, although his post in now way needs defending.
That’d be awesome. 
And I explained how economy of scale often makes central planning more efficient and desirable. Anyway, to the extent that you feel I singled out your post over BobLibDem’s I apologize. I’ll remedy that by responding to his right now.
I am trying to think of issues where this idea of federalism might have the best shot at being implemented. I guess economic issues might be a place to start, like BobLibDem’s suggestion about highway taxes and farm subsidies.
The trouble is, it is hard to find an instance where economic issues don’t shade into what looks to me like a power grab by the feds. The highway tax is a good example. There has been both suggestions, and actual implemented policy, where the federal government uses granting or withholding federal highway funds to push the states into implementing some idea or other - a 55 mph speed limit, a .08 DUI limit, some other stuff I can’t think of right now. That represents to me the temptations of federalism.
Maybe education is a good place to begin (after we have eliminated farm subsidies and other forms of corporate welfare). Block grants to each state, with carte blanche to try whatever the states think will work to improve education.
The immediate drawbacks being, of course, the states’ ability to tell the feds to pound sand if the states choose to implement some kind of voucher system for private schools, and the fact that the Dems would then have to offend one of their biggest support groups - teacher’s unions.
Same temptation as with most other forms of federalism. Robbing Peter to pay Paul (which tends often to be the case with transferring money and control away from states and into the federal bureaucracy) makes it pretty certain that Paul will be on your side. And Paul will usually wind up framing the question, not in terms of federalism, but as the government’s duty to protect the children. And/or make it a matter of the Constitution.
Federalism does offer one way to address the problem of the deficit, however. Simply allocate how much the federal government will deliver to each state to pay, for example, for health care. Then hand over responsiblity to the states to spend that money as efficiently as possible. When they run out, shrug your shoulders and blame it on the state bureacracy.
Thus the feds decide that they can spend no more than $300 billion on health care and still balance the budget. So they split up the $300B among the several states, based on population size and age and other relevent demographic details. Then the states decide they will spend so much on prevention, so much on nursing homes, so much on emergency services, etc. If they run out, they can raise their own taxes.
Isn’t that what Canada does with its national health care budget? Yes, it will lead to de facto rationing, but I suspect we will get that anyway.
Regards,
Shodan
Efficient and desirable for the planners perhaps. But Von Mises proved conclusively that central planning is the weakest possible approach by any government except in matters of defense. And Hayek won a Nobel Prize for proving that it is impossibly futile in matters of economics.
Apology accepted. Thank you.
I’ll take my crack at working through this thread.
JKellyMap:
I think that’s a complicated question that has to do with historical conditions causing the federal government to be the agent of social change. Okay, that’s kinda begging the question. How’s this? The greatest expansions of federal power over domestic policy came in times of national crisis – the Civil War and the Great Depression – when new ideas were perceived as being necessary and exigent. The civil rights era, in large part, was a consummation of Reconstruction. And then, as I postulated in the OP, liberals noted the (perceived) success of the New Deal and the Civil Rights Acts and, controlling Congress and the presidency in the late 60s, turned their sights to greater national social policy at a time when they were losing sway over Southern states. I’d also argue that many of the policies now thought of as prehistorically liberal, such as welfare or national education policy, were at the times of their inception quickly accepted by lagre swathes of both political parties…look at the bureaucratic framework that Nixon put into place, for instance.
In that vein, it’s important to note the difference between right-wing/left-wing and conservative/liberal. I think a bias towards the status quo will generally exist, and that the national government is sometimes a more effective fulcrum for the implementation of new policy, whether that policy is devised by Democrats or Republicans. Overcoming the institutional inertia of the federal state is a tremendous accomplishment with great potential benefit.
That’s perhaps a more cynical way of putting forth what I view as the core idea of the OP: that the notion of federalism – of devolving some measure of autonomy to state and local governments – is content-neutral. It needn’t be associated almost entirely with Republican ideas, as it currently is (and even as the Republican Party itself is splurging on federal spending). But it must be distinguished from a generalized desire to remove power from government at all levels. There’s a great article, written a while ago for a liberal rag, called The Devil in Devolution, which argued in part that many proponents of devolution are in favor of it not because they believe that states and localities should most appropriately handle particular policy areas or industries, but because they believe states and localities to be ill-equipped to regulate with anywhere near the force or scope of the federal government, causing de facto deregulation. That’s not true states’ rights whatsoever.
Why collect money from the states just to send it back?. I never understood this approach. States’ rights should mean the states keep the money in the first place and spend it as they wish.
I suspect because some states have a smaller, less affluent tax base. And problems that are genuinely addressable by large programs might be disproportionately centered in some states.
Regards,
Shodan
How else would you pay for all this?
I’m surprised the thread has gotten this far without anyone mentioning the United Nations, a decidedly liberal instution. The vision of the world they would support that includes the UN would be have to be a form of federalism. In that light, it doesn’t seem as surprising that liberals also might not object to federalism at home.