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> The US would fall apart very quickly if the federal government insisted on handing out loans and forcing the cancellation of aid and welfare programs in state
by acabal 11y ago
> The US would fall apart very quickly if the federal government insisted on handing out loans and forcing the cancellation of aid and welfare programs in states that needed help the most.
I always thought that was the big difference between the United States and the "United Euro States"--the EU. The USA was founded "fresh" as a place in which states had a measure of independence but ultimately formed a nation at a federal level. That meant that it was in the nation's self-interest to help out states that ran in to trouble--paying off debts, etc.--because helping a state out would help the nation succeed.
The EU was formed with the baggage of centuries of bloody warfare among nations of wildly different and opposing cultures. I don't think that kind of history--and more importantly, the fundamental differences in culture--can be shrugged off in the 50-odd years that the idea of the EU has been around. It would seem that in practice, EU member nations are still very much about finger-pointing, and that can never lead to a successful federal bloc.
When a state goes bankrupt in the US, the other states pitch in at a federal level to solve the issue without divisiveness. When an EU member goes bankrupt, the other members demand blood.
- kiiski 11y agoI would say that you're exactly correct, when you say that the EU can never lead to a successful federal bloc. The EU is not a federation, no matter what kind of nicknames one invents for it. EU citizens and member states don't want it to be a federation (some do of course, but they are probably fewer than the people calling for the EU to be disbanded entirely). It's pointless to compare EU to USA. They are not the same, they were never meant to be the same, and no one wants them to became the same.
- igravious 11y agoI do. (Sort of.) I want the EU to become a successful federal _economic_ bloc. It already is a semi-successful federal _currency_ bloc. Some bailout institutions based on loan repayments have been created owing to this crisis. We need to go one step further and work out a system of fiscal transfers which upgrades us from a currency bloc to an economic one. We're one step away, that's all. Granted, it's a big step. I don't even mind if it happens covertly in the fine print of some labyrinthine deal because peoples' nationalism is a bogey that should be defeated by foul means as well as fair. I doubt I'm the only one. I think anybody who calls themselves European first, and their own nation second would agree with me.