We have come full circle to the condition our forefathers found when devising Federalism

Our founding fathers had an expansive geography and dispersed populations from which to form a government. So they devised a framework from which faraway states could resolve local issues in a coordinated yet self developed manner. This splitting of power between central and state governments is called Federalism despite that the original Federalist,  Alexander Hamilton, had an inclination for central governance.  As a century passed communication improved and businesses used it to grow large command and control hierarchies that government felt compelled to imitate when trying to solve the Great Depression. Big government really came into its own with its successful prosecution of World War II which gave an afterglow of goodness and effectiveness to which it rode to a zenith with the implementation of LBJ’s Great Society.  Then came the reaction best expressed by Ronald Reagan in his 1980 election campaign as the scariest words in the English language: “I’m from government, I’m here to help.” By the new millennia many institutions with command and control structures were replaced by flat dispersed ones coming full circle to the condition our forefathers found and which now frays the bonds of the last holdout, our government in Washington.

Federal over State authority has always been tempered with a need to cooperate where today States legalize Marijuana understanding Washington has the law to stop it but which the Justice Department chooses not to pursue and thereby antagonize. Today's departments and agencies are further tested by Governor Jerry Brown of California. First he popped EPA Secretary Scott Pruitt’s trial balloon to relax fuel economy standards by insisting California’s will remain and since his market is most important to automakers he effectively trumped Trump. This skirmish so emboldened the Governor that he now circumvents the State Department to assure world leaders that California will counter Washington’s pullback from the Paris Climate Accord. And with regard to immigration one can only  imagine the hamstringing of Homeland Security’s ICE division perpetrated by the Governor for a State with an economic need for immigrants.

Meddlesome top down thinking types believe that States are incapable of legislating and then implementing beneficent social programs on their own. But  in 2006 Massachusetts passed a health plan under Republican Governor Mitt Romney’s watch. It was legislated in State with local support rather than in Washington where support can be scattered and resistance easy to drum up. What the last Presidential election made clear is that the electorate is tired of Washington’s one size fits all solutions to unclear market deficiencies. For Congress to restore trust in government, government must first trust the people know, even in their ignorance, what’s best for themselves. This is particularly so for Democrats who yearn for the blunt instrument of the FDR era which now does little more than dole out favors to rent seekers who know adding to the labyrinth of laws and regulation enhances their monopoly pricing power.