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> It says practically nothing. Is that not the whole point? "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the Sta

> It says practically nothing. Is that not the whole point? "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

nathanaldensr 4y ago
This basic fact eludes the intelligentsia who all assume that federal power is The Way Things Are (or Should Be). They assume it's the default position, when in fact the Framers intended it to be a bare-bones fallback for only basic things like the national defense.
- jdmichal 4y ago
  They found a nice workaround with federal taxation though. There's a lot of instances where the states technically have the power to pass different laws than what's federally blessed. However, they'll lose federal funding if they do. And the majority of the time, that's just not a good trade-off. So the federal government is essentially taxing the state's citizens, then giving some amount of it back to the states in exchange for rowing the boat in the right direction. States that increase their own taxes to compensate for refusal of federal funds would become noncompetitive to other states who don't.
  - lupire 4y ago
    That's because the SCOTUS is inherently Federal, and so is biased toward Federal power.
  - jquery 4y ago
    The biggest strike against states rights in recent memory was the removal of the SALT deduction, one of the strongest protectors of state power. Now states with higher tax burdens are much less competitive, because the citizens of that state don’t benefit nearly as much for what they pay.
    - eppp 4y ago
      The SALT deduction was a massive thumb in the eye to those of us that didnt get it. Why should local tax burden have anything to do with federal taxes? It was just a handout at the end of the day.
      - jquery 4y ago
        Without it, we have a race to the bottom with social services and infrastructure. A state with better infrastructure cannot be tax-competitive with another state that simply sucks on the federal government’s teat for all its needs. The biggest handout of all is small states getting two senators despite having 1/50th the population. SALT deductions are nothing in comparison, you could always redirect federal money to make sure red states are net beneficiaries of federal money… and whaddya know, even with the SALT deduction they were.
        prottog 4y ago
        > another state that simply sucks on the federal government’s teat It's antithetical to the federal nature of the US that the overwhelming majority of tax dollars are paid to the federal government and not to state and local governments. The federal government's share of taxation should be limited to support its constitutional mission, and more should remain at the state and local level to achieve state and local missions, including things like social services and infrastructure. That way, some states may choose to have an expanded role of government with high levels of social services and infrastructure spending, some may choose the opposite, and none are left sucking on the federal teat -- the milk from which, may I remind you, are collected from people who live in every state, not just the ones with "better infrastructure". In the end government money is just people's money taken by taxation. When you let the federal government take most of it, you allow it to browbeat the states into doing whatever the federal government wants, conveniently escaping the limitations that the Constitution placed on it.
        jquery 4y ago
        Okay, I see you and I are coming at this from very, very different philosophical viewpoints. I do not care what the founders intended, I don’t live in 1786. I am sympathetic to Elie Mystal’s view from the book Allow Me To Retort towards the Constitution. To summarize: “Our Constitution is not good. It is a document designed to create a society of enduring white male dominance, hastily edited in the margins to allow for what basic political rights white men could be convinced to share. The Constitution is an imperfect work that urgently and consistently needs to be modified and reimagined to make good on its unrealized promises of justice and equality for all. And yet you rarely see liberals make the point that the Constitution is actually trash. Conservatives are out here acting like the Constitution was etched by divine flame upon stone tablets, when in reality it was scrawled out over a sweaty summer by people making deals with actual monsters who were trying to protect their rights to rape the humans they held in bondage.” Excerpt From Allow Me to Retort Elie Mystal https://books.apple.com/us/book/allow-me-to-retort/id1549926360 https://books.apple.com/us/book/allow-me-to-retort/id1549926... This material may be protected by copyright.
- closeparen 4y ago
  The economy turns out to be a pretty big deal, and Commerce Clause aside, states by design have little leverage over it: their borders being open, capital can always just head next door. Small federal government is basically equivalent to right-libertarian economic policy. In an alternate universe you might see liberals content to build welfare states at state level, but in this one it's not really an option. The framers were well before the Industrial Revolution; if they intended a right-libertarian bias, the economy they wanted unchecked was a smaller and tamer beast than this one. But anyway, they did give us the Commerce Clause.
  - DebtDeflation 4y ago
    >The framers were well before the Industrial Revolution They were well before radio, TV, internet, trains, automobiles, airplanes, nuclear power, and many other things that do not strictly respect state lines. "Leave most decisions to the states" made a lot of sense in 1789 but we live in a different world now.
    - rayiner 4y ago
      I don’t really buy this. Somehow Europe manages pretty well with much smaller and more granular country level decision making units.
      - closeparen 4y ago
        The EU famously makes a lot of policy!
        xyzzyz 4y ago
        Only barely more than half of the European countries are in EU, and 20 years ago, less than a third was.
        rayiner 4y ago
        Not compared to what democrats want the US federal government to do. EU countries have their own gun laws, separate healthcare, retirement, and unemployment systems, separate housing and labor laws, etc. Separate laws on abortion, same sex marriage, and other social issues.

nathanaldensr 4y ago

This basic fact eludes the intelligentsia who all assume that federal power is The Way Things Are (or Should Be). They assume it's the default position, when in fact the Framers intended it to be a bare-bones fallback for only basic things like the national defense.

jdmichal 4y ago
They found a nice workaround with federal taxation though. There's a lot of instances where the states technically have the power to pass different laws than what's federally blessed. However, they'll lose federal funding if they do. And the majority of the time, that's just not a good trade-off. So the federal government is essentially taxing the state's citizens, then giving some amount of it back to the states in exchange for rowing the boat in the right direction. States that increase their own taxes to compensate for refusal of federal funds would become noncompetitive to other states who don't.
- lupire 4y ago
  That's because the SCOTUS is inherently Federal, and so is biased toward Federal power.
- jquery 4y ago
  The biggest strike against states rights in recent memory was the removal of the SALT deduction, one of the strongest protectors of state power. Now states with higher tax burdens are much less competitive, because the citizens of that state don’t benefit nearly as much for what they pay.
  - eppp 4y ago
    The SALT deduction was a massive thumb in the eye to those of us that didnt get it. Why should local tax burden have anything to do with federal taxes? It was just a handout at the end of the day.
    - jquery 4y ago
      Without it, we have a race to the bottom with social services and infrastructure. A state with better infrastructure cannot be tax-competitive with another state that simply sucks on the federal government’s teat for all its needs. The biggest handout of all is small states getting two senators despite having 1/50th the population. SALT deductions are nothing in comparison, you could always redirect federal money to make sure red states are net beneficiaries of federal money… and whaddya know, even with the SALT deduction they were.
      - prottog 4y ago
        > another state that simply sucks on the federal government’s teat It's antithetical to the federal nature of the US that the overwhelming majority of tax dollars are paid to the federal government and not to state and local governments. The federal government's share of taxation should be limited to support its constitutional mission, and more should remain at the state and local level to achieve state and local missions, including things like social services and infrastructure. That way, some states may choose to have an expanded role of government with high levels of social services and infrastructure spending, some may choose the opposite, and none are left sucking on the federal teat -- the milk from which, may I remind you, are collected from people who live in every state, not just the ones with "better infrastructure". In the end government money is just people's money taken by taxation. When you let the federal government take most of it, you allow it to browbeat the states into doing whatever the federal government wants, conveniently escaping the limitations that the Constitution placed on it.
        jquery 4y ago
        Okay, I see you and I are coming at this from very, very different philosophical viewpoints. I do not care what the founders intended, I don’t live in 1786. I am sympathetic to Elie Mystal’s view from the book Allow Me To Retort towards the Constitution. To summarize: “Our Constitution is not good. It is a document designed to create a society of enduring white male dominance, hastily edited in the margins to allow for what basic political rights white men could be convinced to share. The Constitution is an imperfect work that urgently and consistently needs to be modified and reimagined to make good on its unrealized promises of justice and equality for all. And yet you rarely see liberals make the point that the Constitution is actually trash. Conservatives are out here acting like the Constitution was etched by divine flame upon stone tablets, when in reality it was scrawled out over a sweaty summer by people making deals with actual monsters who were trying to protect their rights to rape the humans they held in bondage.” Excerpt From Allow Me to Retort Elie Mystal https://books.apple.com/us/book/allow-me-to-retort/id1549926360 https://books.apple.com/us/book/allow-me-to-retort/id1549926... This material may be protected by copyright.
closeparen 4y ago
The economy turns out to be a pretty big deal, and Commerce Clause aside, states by design have little leverage over it: their borders being open, capital can always just head next door. Small federal government is basically equivalent to right-libertarian economic policy. In an alternate universe you might see liberals content to build welfare states at state level, but in this one it's not really an option. The framers were well before the Industrial Revolution; if they intended a right-libertarian bias, the economy they wanted unchecked was a smaller and tamer beast than this one. But anyway, they did give us the Commerce Clause.
- DebtDeflation 4y ago
  >The framers were well before the Industrial Revolution They were well before radio, TV, internet, trains, automobiles, airplanes, nuclear power, and many other things that do not strictly respect state lines. "Leave most decisions to the states" made a lot of sense in 1789 but we live in a different world now.
  - rayiner 4y ago
    I don’t really buy this. Somehow Europe manages pretty well with much smaller and more granular country level decision making units.
    - closeparen 4y ago
      The EU famously makes a lot of policy!
      - xyzzyz 4y ago
        Only barely more than half of the European countries are in EU, and 20 years ago, less than a third was.
      - rayiner 4y ago
        Not compared to what democrats want the US federal government to do. EU countries have their own gun laws, separate healthcare, retirement, and unemployment systems, separate housing and labor laws, etc. Separate laws on abortion, same sex marriage, and other social issues.