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"Fifty states, fifty laboratories" falls over when the foolish ones come with their hand out. See Kansas and their Sam Brownback disaster. This is, ultimately,
by eropple 8y ago
"Fifty states, fifty laboratories" falls over when the foolish ones come with their hand out. See Kansas and their Sam Brownback disaster.
This is, ultimately, why I expect that most federal systems beyond a certain scale will fail: because the federated, without counterbalancing factors like "national unity" or "the barest sense of shame," will use, and then abuse, the federal safety net at the expense of everybody else. (See yesterday's arguments of "well, why should SALT be deductible?"--where states more impacted by SALT deductible reductions generally pay in more despite their increased state and local taxes.)
At that point, I expect that the collapse of the federated will necessitate federal and state conglomeration. I don't have a good idea on what timeline we will collectively realize this, though.
- freedomben 8y agoI agree with you, but I'd say that's more a defect in the US Constitution that permits one state to plunder another. If the federal government were not allowed to redistribute wealth from California to Kansas (or vice-versa depending on your politics) then the issue would be moot because foolish people with their hands out would be there all day with no power to act on it. Actually, are you saying that doing away with the federal system altogether is the only sane approach (or letting it fail and not re-instantiating it)? If so, I think I agree
- eropple 8y agoI don't know about "only sane", but I expect it to happen. Conglomeration is probably inevitable, in fact if not name, with the federal government assuming more and more of those roles just because of the economies of scale.