Federalism. The concept that certain government powers belong to the national government, while certain others belong to state and local governments. It's a concept embedded in our Constitution, and it's also a concept at the heart of our national division of not just of opinion, but also of day-to-day reality. And, as a consequence, it's reflected in Washington right now in a particularly divisive way.
We have a House of Representatives that will, in just a few days, be controlled by the Democrats, because the majority of the people in this country, as election after election in this century has shown, identify either with the Democratic Party or the progressive ideals for which it has traditionally stood. On the other hand, we have a Senate that, for the foreseeable future (and I hope I'm wrong) will be controlled by Republicans because the minority of people in this country live in the majority of states, and consistently vote for Republicans despite the fact that Republicans have spent the past four decades on trickle-up-and-out policies that shift wealth from workers to investors and, ultimately, oversees (along with the workers' jobs). More on that later. Of course, we also have a President elected by a minority of the people because federalism, by way of the Electoral College and its allocation of electoral votes, allows the states to control who occupies the Oval Office.
And because the federal structure of our government is embedded in our Constitution, it's not going anywhere soon. Anytime.
Perhaps it shouldn't.
A key historical argument against it is the fact that, originally, its strongest proponents have been those who saw it as a convenient philosophical vehicle for transporting an inherently racist institution, slavery, into their own economic convenience without regard to its power to poison the lives of the enslaved and the larger character of the nation as a whole (think, for example, of those in the North who found it convenient to support slavery in the South through the Triangle Trade). Those advocates were successful, leaving us with a national curse that public and private institutions have slowly begun to unravel.
But that does not mean that federalism can't and doesn't have a valid purpose. Part of what has kept it alive over the centuries is the obvious fact that some issues, such as the prosecution of war and the regulation of trade "among the several States" is most easily and effectively done on a national scale, while others more dependent on an understanding of conditions on a smaller scale, such as police and education, are most effectively dealt with on a local scale. With that in mind, it may make sense for progressives to stop fighting or bemoaning the existence of federalism, but rather to start figuring out ways by which to make it work on behalf of the causes they care about.
Take economic development, for example.
Like it or not, government at all levels has been involved in the national, and in local, economic conditions. That has been even more true over the past century, as national government has been forced to deal with economic dislocations often caused by international events (i.e., the Great Depression), and state and local governments have likewise been forced to deal with changes in their communities and, relative to that, their tax bases (i.e., post-WWII suburbanization). Perhaps the most interesting feature about this trend, in fact, is the manner in which it has over time become one of the few truly bipartisan aspects of our politics, both pro and con. Thus, you have Republican governors offering Amazon taxpayer-funded "bribes" to add a new corporate headquarters within their boarders, but you also have Democrats decrying such "bribes (rightly, IMHO, as an Amazon member) as an unjustified form of corporate welfare.
Well, since government promotion of economic development is no longer a purely partisan issue, why not integrate it into our federal system? What if we did this promotion on a national scale, tethered to goals set at a national level, but with enough flexibility that states could, in fact, tailor it to their specific needs?
Take, for example, the concept of block grants, a concept beloved by conservatives as a way of funding social programs for states. What if we were to give each state a sum of money each year, with the specific sum for each state determined by its population, and with the stipulation that it had to be used to ensure a job for every able-bodied adult in the state--but with no other stipulations about how it was to be used? State and local governments could take these funds, and then tailor their use to local conditions. And they could be used to address unemployment caused by anything, whether historic poverty related to race, or rural poverty based on bigger structural changes in economics (such as the decline in extraction industries).
Don't like giving away taxpayer money? Then don't. Instead, create federal tax credits that can be used with the same flexibility as the block-grant proposal I just described. And again, tie those credits to federal oversight, to ensure full employment across the country. The point, ultimately, is that there are ways to take federalism and make it work for, rather than against, progressive goals.
I've been thinking about this subject for a while, and recently saw two New York Times articles that made me think that the time may now be ripe for making this approach a part of our political discussion.
This one, about the tendency of rural Kentucky voters to vote Republican despite their financial dependence on federal welfare programs, indirectly comes to the conclusion that this tendency is most logically explained by the fact that people in these communities would rather have jobs than welfare--a feeling that is doubtless universal. What I'm suggesting is a way that would directly address that desire, with the added benefit that local workers would be able through their votes to have some say in the types of jobs that are created.
And this one, about how to save small-town America, suggests from some of the suggestions about how to do it that people are ready for that type of approach. Think locally about solutions to poverty; build up mid-sized cities; create incentives for new industries to replace departed ones. All of these are ideas presented in this article, and all of them would be encouraged by what I'm proposing here.
I'm so convinced of the significance of what I'm proposing here (and no, not because I'm proposing it) that I'm willing to say that the presidential candidate who makes this central to his or her campaign will be the one who wins not only the nomination, but also the honor of being the person who will make us forget all about D****** T****. Any takers among the 20-plus hopefuls for that honor?
Maybe it'll happen if enough of us get behind us and push it. I know I'll be pushing hard, this year and next. I hope many of you will join me.
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