The Death of Federalism
Jul 16th, 2010 by FVoshell
Our federalist government has been in its death throes for a long time. Some attribute the beginning of the end to the seventeenth amendment, which transferred the election of senators from state legislatures to popular vote, thus depriving state legislatures of much of their power to influence federal policies. A bulwark against the encroachment of the federal government was removed.
Others believe the end of federalism was guaranteed when fiscal federalism failed. That failure was a process of gradual erosion introduced by the infusion of federal funds into states’ budgets, most notably and recently in the case of federal stimulus monies being granted to states with specific demands as to how it should be spent. Few state governors can forget, as Veronique de Rugy noted in a recent paper for the Mercatus Center, that in May of 2009, the federal government forced Mark Sanford, then governor of South Carolina, not only to take stimulus funds, but to spend the money on new programs rather than on paying down debt.
Ms. Rugy goes on to note that without a limit on federal fiscal power, competition and innovation among the states is destroyed, as a one size fits all economic policy ruins incentive, including citizens’ incentive as to where they would like to live. When homogeneity of fiscal policy, including homogeneity of taxes, is dictated by the federal government spells calamity for individual states, as their ability to compete disappears.
But a graver complication arises from the death of fiscal federalism; namely, that states are reduced to being mendicants petitioning for government largesse. States are fast becoming the equivalent of Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia under the Soviet regime—mere administrative appendages and puppets for the all powerful federal government. State is pitted against state in a pitiful struggle for economic survival.
The result: Economic innovation and healthy competition among states is becoming increasingly pointless as economic survival is the bottom line. Further, as Rugy notes: “As programs become more centralized, state authorities must increasingly comply with procedures and regulations set forth by Washington. These homogenous procedures and regulations often ignore the needs of local taxpayers. In effect, the states and the federal government act as a tax cartel, charging higher taxes for lower quality services that do not address the unique needs of communities.”
Worse, as states’ economic independence has collapsed, the power of states to govern themselves and to take firm action in times of crises has also collapsed, as has been markedly shown by the recent actions of the federal government in its handling of the Gulf oil spill and Arizona’s immigration law. In both cases, the power of individual states to protect and defend themselves and to establish initiatives peculiar to their own needs in times of deep distress has been not just challenged, but destroyed.
Conservative candidates should make a return to true federalism a plank of their platform for desperately needed reform. The answer to the dilemma of the states of our union is radical decentralization, including the decentralization of the federal government’s power to tax and to spend. Unless radical decentralization and a return to true federalism is established, the slide toward total and tyrannical control by the federal government will proceed exponentially.
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Restore the Tenth Amendment
Amen to that!
Don’t fret, Obama care will expand Medicaid and bankrupt the states and Obama will sue the states for enforcing Federal Immigration Law. Who said Obama doesn’t respect states rights?
The only state Obama respects is the state of disarray the Country is in now. This man could not lead a Kindergarten class to a water fountain.
Mike Protack
Well, who knows what he will do? Personally, I think the man has a chaos theory–create disarray and chaos and then expand federal power even more in order to “restore order.”
I don’t think he’s stupid. I think he’s a power hungry ideologue.
Restoring State Sovereignty is a large part of the reason I am running for state representative. A large part of the reason the Federal Government has been allowed to trample on the sovereignty of the states is because state legislators are all too happy to pass the buck. On a large number of issues, the buck stops with the states, not with the president, as Harry Truman once asserted…
The courts ended federalism, by allowing Congress to ignore Article I., Section 8., (the powers of Congress). This gave our governing body carte blanche to do anything, no matter how absurd and patently unconstitutional, under the ‘General Welfare’ and ‘Commerce’ clauses, Madison’s essay (Federalist #41, last four paragraphs) concerning the purpose of ‘General Welfare’ notwithstanding.
Modern jurists deemed themselves to be able to best understand the ‘intent’ of the Founders, despite the true, expressed intent by the Founders (Madison, Fed. #41) themselves!
Will, as far as I’m concerned, we should clone cnadidates who believe in the restoration of true federalism.
Alas, I think it will be a really difficult slog to do so due to the exponential growth of the federal government. Voters have had no say over the growth of agencies, czars, and various bureaucracies which are now so embedded in the social fabric it will be every difficult to get them out without some damage.
But I agree the states need to step up and assume their constitutional responsibilities.
Rick,
I agree the elasticity of the “general welfare” and “commerce clause” as interpreted by the courts (as well as by legislators) has been disastrous.
Actually, at the heart of the matter is the substitution of a political philosophy based on the Darwinian concept of continual evolution of societal and political mores, case in point being the concept of a “living” constitution which is to be interpreted anew (continually evolving) by each generation.
The shift in philsophical/religious assumptions, coupled with the misapplication of the Theory of Relativity to the realm of morality has resulted in a distaste for foundational documents once held to be the core of American political thought and practice.
A similar process eroded Christian beliefs as well as an evolutionary concept of Christian beliefs replaced ideas of eternal and unchanging verities.
In both cases, elasticity of meaning eventually became so stretched that the original documents no longer had any particular or even clear meaning and gradually were dismissed as quaint documents belonging to the past or, even more importantly, as total irrelevancies in a modern era devoted to chasing the next new evolution of society.
“…based on the Darwinian concept of continual evolution of societal and political mores, case in point being the concept of a “living” constitution which is to be interpreted anew (continually evolving) by each generation.
This is undoubtedly true. Of course, as Horace, Shakespeare, Pope and others have demonstrated, man doesn’t change- technology does. Man cannot create new concepts; they’ve always existed- jealousy, ambition, hate, compassion. Read Horace’s ‘Dining at the Rich Man’s House’…written 2000 years ago. Time passes, and today’s ‘couch potato’ is yesterday’s sloth. Same thing, different term.
The mistake is that so-called ‘liberals’ think that they can improve the product obvious genius- our Founders. And, unfortunately, their substitute for ‘improvement’ is Marx-based collectivism- a proven failure.
“Behold the child
By Nature’s kindly law,
Pleased with a rattle
Tickled with a straw,
Some livelier plaything gives his youth delight
A little louder, but as empty quite,
Scarves, garters, gold amuse his riper stage
And beads and prayer-books are the toys of age,
Pleased with this bauble, as that before
’till tired he sleeps, and Life’s poor play is over”….Alexander Pope