Hacker News Reader

Comment by bkeroack | Hacker News Reader

> I believe most Americans are opposed to a national ID, so SSNs have been used as a (utterly terrible) workaround.

The federal government was never intended to administer services or benefits directly to all US citizens. The US Constitution enumerates a very limited set of federal powers: defense, foreign policy and regulation of interstate commerce, none of which concerns the average citizen day to day. It was intended for state and local governments to directly serve the people in almost all circumstances.

The New Deal was a terrible imposition of big government on the country and we're dealing with the cascade of problems and constitutional issues to this day, SSNs being a very visible example.

View on HN

The role of the government has certainly evolved since the 18th century, and thank goodness we're not stuck with a union with a weak central government. Do you really look at the balkanized, fractious EU and think to yourself, "Gee, I wish we had that"? IMHO the New Deal didn't go nearly far enough.

Do you look at the balkanized fractious USA and think to myself, "Gee, I wish we had that"? Endless wars, being rules by people who live thousands of miles away and don't understand your states' needs?

Not OP, but I actually do wish that, yes. I think a lot of the problems we're having with political deadlock on the federal level these days boil down to pulling too many divisive issues onto that level, where the resolution, whichever way it goes, applies to over 300 million people - so you end up with a large dissatisfied minority more often than not. Specific issues aside, it doesn't strike me as particularly democratic, either; and I'm not sure representative democracy can even meaningfully scale to the point where legislators ostensibly "represent" millions of people at once.

OTOH, if we had more federalism, I think the West Coast states might have been implementing their own full-fledged public healthcare system right now, instead of trying to come up with some compromise that the other half of the country can maybe accept (like ACA).

All that said, I don't see a problem with national ID. It's just as useful to the states as it is to the feds, and it's clear that something like that can only be run by the feds.

> Do you really look at the balkanized, fractious EU and think to yourself, "Gee, I wish we had that"?

That sounds pretty nice actually.

>and think to yourself, "Gee, I wish we had that"?

No I think "why the hell didn't they put a sunset provision in all those bills?"

As an aside, one could construct a pretty good argument that the new deal was the result of all the Europeans who got off the boat in the prior decades throwing away freedom they really hadn't come to appreciate in exchange for the government playing the role of a lord who has some responsibility to prevent his peasants from hitting rock bottom (lest they revolt) with the catch being that said lord also has a ton of control over their freedom.

You don't engage in interstate commerce on a day to day basis? Do you only eat food grown in your own state, sold by local businesses who don't operate in any other state?

Do you only eat food grown in your own state

Even if you did, it doesn't matter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn

So what? People who live in the EU engage in inter-state (-nation, I mean, to disambiguate) commerce daily as well, and that seems to be going no worse over there than it is over here.

I don't really see your point. Practically speaking, I only food sold in my local grocery store. Sure the grocery chain probably really does take deliveries directly from other states every day, but I'm not directly involved in the interstate portion of the supply chain.

While you're right, and I dont think you ought to be downvoted, governments evolve.

Actually, Social Security is a terrific program which has done more to reduce and prevent poverty than any other government program ever.

It is the US Constitution that is bad, by making entrenching dysfunction and hindering reform.

How does the US Constitution entrench dysfunction and hinder reform?

There are a number of issues that contributed. Predominantly a lack of clarity on federal vs state power which stems from a combination unnecessarily high barriers to change (other countries tend to change their Constitutions rather frequently) and a lack of accountability (very long election cycles).

The patchwork nomic-style lawmaking that leads to eventual entrenched dysfunction and resistance to reform was assured. The US will not likely last half as long as Rome. We're 1 economic collapse away from fractionating into new aggregations.

Do you have an opinion on the correct balance between state a federal powers, and how long ought an election cycle be - does the adding a ballot based recall mechanism change things?

I'd argue our style of law making is no different than other western democracies. How do you feel law making should be different?

> on the correct balance between state a federal powers, and how long ought an election cycle be

The US doesn't have mechanisms for removal through accountability. This would mediate any need for an optimal cycle (which doesn't exist due to factors like breadth of initiative). Legal controls on "good faith" grace periods would be an effective control, but we don't even get that due to corruption. The US legal system has festered for too long imo.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com