Except for FEMA, certain water environmental regulations, and regulations on Wall Street, is there any good, concrete reason we couldn't leave these functions to the individual States?
The GOP loves a big powerful fed more than anyone. This has been true for a long time. I remember when Bush sent the feds into California to shut down medical marijuana facilities. I also remember when he wanted to send the national guard into Buffalo. I also remember when he created the Patriot Act and Homeland Security Department, which gave the fed vast new powers to intervene in the states.
How do you think the Bush fed got Spitzer?
http://harpers.org/archive/2008/03/hbc-90002589
I remember when Reagan chose to grow the Pentagon beyond anything imaginable so Washington could manage multiple continents for the purpose of protecting/expanding the global market system. For a party that preaches decentralized control of the economy, the Reagan Revolution was doing the opposite globally, i.e., creating a unitary global framework so American capital could access all the world's labor and resources. Go ahead, ask your typical GOP voter about what has been done to preserve the dollar as the world's currency, or the oil currency. Ask about the kinds of massive centralized power Washington needed to impose its will across several foreign economies, exchanges, and political structures. Or ask them about the kind of regulatory infrastructure required to sustain just one small futures market - and I'm not even talking about global monetary exchanges, as if these things just kind of spontaneously occur and could be managed directly by a few small shop keepers on main street, like in Adam Smith's day. Ask a GOP voter any of this and you will see Norquist's influence. You will get a blank stare. Oil currencies? Huh? They cannot speak articulately about the vast machinery that runs the world - much less how markets happen, and what it takes to manage them.
The problem with states rights, is the same problem with free markets.
They are myths that no party supports (or could support), especially Republicans.
But, in principal, sure, I'm actually with you 100%: I'd love to see the states handle more stuff. Which is why I fear for 2012, when the GOP Fed on steroids marches back into every state to impose their will on matters of drugs, marriage, and security. Watch for the new biometric ID cards which the War on Terrorism crowd has been quietly preparing -- waiting for the right moment to wrap themselves in the flag, using fear and national security to take away more freedoms. Watch how they re-grow Homeland Security to penetrate state legislatures and procedures. The scary thing is that the party who preaches most about states rights is (and always has been) the party who grows government the most. The problem with our country is that Democrats are too weak to stop the GOP from growing their own version of Big Government (around Big Military, Big Law Enforcement, and Big Surveillance - all unified brilliantly in the Patriot Act and Homeland Security).
And we can't look to the GOP voting base to discipline their party because conservatives LOVE their Government leaders - they always have. Look at their Love of Reagan. On the other hand, the radical Left told LBJ to go to hell. You would never see the Right do this to dear leader. Never. This means that the leadership on the Right will always have an easier time growing government.
(and they're coming back in 2012)
(You ain't seen nothing yet)
(War on Terrorism 2.0 is going to knock your socks off laddy)
(help)
