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Comment by atomicnumber3 | Hacker News Reader

I'm glad to see states fighting back, finally. I was never really too sure if, from a purely academic point of view, I thought a stronger federal government ("united we stand, divided we fall") or more independent states were a better "system".

But I think the way the US is set up (districting, gerrymandering, redlined, electoral college, etc) makes it far too easy for fringe beliefs to take over and dictate policy. So having states simply being more independent puts up far more barriers to all of us just losing our freedom.

I live in IL. (Not near Chicago). My kids public school only gets about 15% of its funding from the federal govt. We could just finally stop having our stupid flat income tax and make up the shortfall. It might set back the universal preschool system, perhaps (which would be a tragedy but better than complete destruction).

Meanwhile, schools might not even exist in many other states if federal funding disappeared.

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I've always thought more state power was probably a good thing - the US is simply so huge and diverse in thought and religion that you'll always be upsetting a large swath of people no matter what you decide.

That said, as a fly on the wall, my obvious observation from people at large is a direct correlation between how much power they believe states should have and whether or not they belong to the party in power. So it's definitely worth the exercise of seeing if you'd feel the same way still if your exact clone ran the federal government.

The primary issue with state power is human rights. If you don't guarantee certain rights, some other state will gladly exploit its citizens.

The neverending struggle of course is what does one consider a human right.

If a few states work together to make interstate relocation easier, then this should be a self-correcting problem over time. As you mentioned, there is no universal agreement on human rights—the constitution enumerates some basic ones, but there is wide disagreement in interpretation even within these. If we want to avoid a constantly escalating national tug-of-war (inevitably leading IMHO to armed conflict) then local laws should be devolved to the states, with the federal government acting as referee between states and as a neutral anti-corruption enforcer.

I don’t see how we get there, though. I think we may already be too far down the road of centralized power, which is likely to have very bad results for everyone in the end.

The same can be said about the federal level, no matter which level you are at they can happily exploit you, but it is much easier to leave a smaller place than a larger one, so its very preferable to have these decisions at state level than federal level.

>the US is simply so huge and diverse in thought and religion that you'll always be upsetting a large swath of people no matter what you decide.

And Sir Peter Medawar agrees[0]:

   The USA is so enormous, and so numerous are its schools, colleges and 
   religious seminaries, many devoted to special religious beliefs ranging from 
   the unorthodox to the dotty, that we can hardly wonder at its yielding a more 
   bounteous harvest of gobbledygook than the rest of the world put together.

[0] https://www.azquotes.com/quote/1064507

There is a fundamental issue with this kind of federalism though in that it increases strife and could easily lead to civil war.

Let’s say we get rid of Medicare, Medicaid, social security, and research funding at the federal level. What happens next?

The West Coast and North East form compacts, companies, or nonprofits that provide healthcare, retirement and funding for their schools. The south, parts of the Midwest, and the plains fail to do so (at least to the same level) and within a generation we have two separate countries and war.

> within a generation we have two separate countries and war

Or do we? Some states don’t seem to want these things, or at least that’s what their representatives say. So let them experiment. My guess is the loss of benefits will outweigh the meager tax savings, but there may be a couple of states that are fine with the tradeoff. As long as people can move freely, it should be a self-correcting problem.

The problem with centralization is that it creates an all-or-nothing battle for federal control. Right now the people winning that battle don’t seem to share your vision for social programs. Could be an issue, especially with ongoing gerrymandering efforts!

In a big country with strongly polarized political opinions, federalism is the best way to fight this sort of political capture and the associated back-and-forth escalation. As tensions boil over, the only other option that can maintain a semblance of order is brutal repression.

> as long as people can move freely

But they won’t be able to. We’ve already seen this attempted (e.g. https://www.plannedparenthoodaction.org/pressroom/first-in-t... ) and if we went in that direction that’s the kind of thing that would happen.

I’m OK with having a small but well-armed federal agency to ensure freedom of movement if that’s what it takes.

Great! You’ve just put the final piece in place for the civil war.

I disagree, and the status quo is taking us in that direction regardless.

>The West Coast and North East form compacts, companies, or nonprofits that provide healthcare, retirement and funding for their schools.

These coastal states run blowout deficits despite having high taxes on workers and businesses. The companies there might migrate if they could save money on taxes.

>The south, parts of the Midwest, and the plains fail to do so (at least to the same level) and within a generation we have two separate countries and war.

The states are already supposed to be largely sovereign. It is the Federal government asserting authority to tax and regulate everyone that fouls things up. Unfortunately we already have extensive social programs that people have been robbed to pay for, so walking it back would leave too many people everywhere feeling ripped off.

There is NOTHING special about the coastal states that guarantees them supremacy in any area of production. They have lots of people and inertia. Whatever they can do, other states can do also (and probably already are). It's an elitist attitude of the residents of those states that makes them think they're better than the "flyover" states.

Those states have a much larger GDP, allowing them to actually afford those things.

The reality is California gives much, much more to the federal government than it takes. The same is not true for a lot of other states.

I think wording is important here. California doesn't give anything to the federal government. So, I'll try my best to correct it.

Because of high salaries and population, the people of the state of California pay more in federal income taxes than the state receives as federal subsidies.

Perhaps same end result, but the framing is important. California isn't some saint who donates money to the govt.

Of course they're not a saint, but they're not hurting for money because they're the 4th largest GDP. In the world.

California is also huge and populous. It's not like there is anything special about California that makes it have a high GDP, other than its size and the great weather which attracts a lot of people and businesses to there. I would have to look it up, but I suspect that every state pays more to the Federal government than they get. There's no free lunch.

To my original point, most people and businesses are not flocking to California to be taxed to hell for some welfare programs or whatever. Businesses would move in a heartbeat away from that overtaxed and overregulated state if they could. But since most taxes are federal and can't be avoided by moving to the Midwest or something, they might as well pay a little more to be in a marginally better or more prestigious location.

> I would have to look it up, but I suspect that every state pays more to the Federal government than they get.

No state pays more to the Federal government than it gets. States don't pay federal taxes, but receive federal funds.

I'm not talking about the government itself lol. I mean the people and businesses in each state collectively, obviously. Even with the huge national debt and budget deficit, I think most states on net contribute more in taxes than they get back. That's the entire point of taxes, otherwise it would be called a gift or something instead. The federal government could not pay out more than it takes in indefinitely to the entire country without just running the printing press to pay the difference. That is what they do, in fact, but clearly they aren't printing everything they spend.

More than state power vs federal power, we the people should hold the power. Two meta issues at play are gerrymandering and judges.

Gerrymandering gives power to who the state legislators want. Federal and many state judges are appointed and serve for life. What good is states rights if your state passes a popular law and some federal judge or activist judge shoots it down because of who passed it?

A big reason we even have to discuss this at all is because Washington clearly doesn't represent regular Americans' best interests or desires.

Gerrymandering is just a symptom, not the problem. The US has had 435 house representatives since the Reapportionment Act of 1929. The population of the US during the 1930 census was about a third of what it is today. If we bumped it up to about 1300 representatives gerrymandering a district or two wouldn't really matter.

> If we bumped it up to about 1300 representatives gerrymandering a district or two wouldn't really matter

Why? More lines means more opportunity for fuckery.

Better: multi-member districts. You get better proportionality. And you reduce the number of lines that can be drawn.

The software that gerrymanders 435 districts will just as happily gerrymander 1300. Since it is not an exact science, the higher number of districts may even help smooth things out and get the statistically desired outcome.

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