- Feb 12, 2007
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Excellent read from the Atlantic about the increase in Federal power at the expense of state and local autonomy. I encourage reading it without a partisan filter. This is not a Dem vs. GOP issue...but one of individual liberty and protection from the government.
The tug of war between the president and Congress is steadily escalating. The most recent sign of incipient institutional breakdown is House Speaker John Boehners suit against President Obama for rewriting laws and stepping on Congresss turf.
But lurking in the wings is a second separation-of-powers issue, just as important, that Americans have mostly overlookedthe separation between federal and state government. In many areas, that vital divide is fast disappearing, owing to a relentless expansion of federal power. And both political parties share the blame.
Programs like Medicaid, Common Core, the Clean Air Act, and the federal highway system enjoy popular support because they appear to allow the federal government to accomplish things all Americans want, at least in the short run. But those programs often turn states into mere field offices of the federal government, often against their will, in turn creating a host of structural problems.
Federal officials exert enormous influence over state budgets and state regulators, often behind the scenes. The new federalism replaces the laboratories of democracy with heavy-handed, once-size-fits-all solutions. Uniformity wins but diversity loses, along with innovation, local choice, and the Constitutions necessary limits on government power.
Take Medicaid. On the surface, it looks like a federal matching-grant for state health care programs targeted at the needy. In fact it is the opposite: a way to rope states into match-funding a federal program. Federal Medicaid funds come with so many strings attached that states have little room to deviate from federal dictatesexcept by expanding their programs to fiscally unsustainable levels, which Medicaid actually encourages the states to do.
A states participation in Medicaid is supposed to be voluntary. The Supreme Court has insisted in such cases as New York v. United States (1992) that the federal government cant command the states to regulate according to federal instructions. But if a state rejects Medicaid and decides to establish its own program for the needy, there is a huge penalty: It loses its share of Medicaid funds, but its citizens still have to pay Medicaid taxes, meaning state residents end up paying twice for the same services. That means less money for schools and roads and other things they need.
Facing this penalty, states have little choice but to comply and be essentially deputized into federal service. In the 2012 decision NFIB v. Sebelius, the Supreme Court held that states couldnt be threatened with the loss of their existing Medicaid funds just because they refused to comply with the Medicaid expansion required by Obamacare. That was a gun to the head, said the Courtcoercion, pure and simple....
The United State of America - The Atlantic
The tug of war between the president and Congress is steadily escalating. The most recent sign of incipient institutional breakdown is House Speaker John Boehners suit against President Obama for rewriting laws and stepping on Congresss turf.
But lurking in the wings is a second separation-of-powers issue, just as important, that Americans have mostly overlookedthe separation between federal and state government. In many areas, that vital divide is fast disappearing, owing to a relentless expansion of federal power. And both political parties share the blame.
Programs like Medicaid, Common Core, the Clean Air Act, and the federal highway system enjoy popular support because they appear to allow the federal government to accomplish things all Americans want, at least in the short run. But those programs often turn states into mere field offices of the federal government, often against their will, in turn creating a host of structural problems.
Federal officials exert enormous influence over state budgets and state regulators, often behind the scenes. The new federalism replaces the laboratories of democracy with heavy-handed, once-size-fits-all solutions. Uniformity wins but diversity loses, along with innovation, local choice, and the Constitutions necessary limits on government power.
Take Medicaid. On the surface, it looks like a federal matching-grant for state health care programs targeted at the needy. In fact it is the opposite: a way to rope states into match-funding a federal program. Federal Medicaid funds come with so many strings attached that states have little room to deviate from federal dictatesexcept by expanding their programs to fiscally unsustainable levels, which Medicaid actually encourages the states to do.
A states participation in Medicaid is supposed to be voluntary. The Supreme Court has insisted in such cases as New York v. United States (1992) that the federal government cant command the states to regulate according to federal instructions. But if a state rejects Medicaid and decides to establish its own program for the needy, there is a huge penalty: It loses its share of Medicaid funds, but its citizens still have to pay Medicaid taxes, meaning state residents end up paying twice for the same services. That means less money for schools and roads and other things they need.
Facing this penalty, states have little choice but to comply and be essentially deputized into federal service. In the 2012 decision NFIB v. Sebelius, the Supreme Court held that states couldnt be threatened with the loss of their existing Medicaid funds just because they refused to comply with the Medicaid expansion required by Obamacare. That was a gun to the head, said the Courtcoercion, pure and simple....
The United State of America - The Atlantic
