It's a truism that America's system was never designed -- it's a patchwork of different pieces that each pay for some people in some situations.
But I've been reading about our system, since I fell down a rabbit hole a couple years ago. Things are bad, yes, but there are actually interesting ideas out there, and real efforts at reform that are being tried.
For example, did you know Maryland has a different way of funding hospitals than most other states? [0] And that other states are interested in copying it?
A system built as a mish-mash patchwork is likely to be solved by a similar "ground-up" framework.
Each state should be free to experiment (as Maryland has done here) and the federal levels should be restricted to providing funding and basic guidelines that have to be met.
Part of the problem is that as you begin to delve in and see where the outflows are, you start to realize that fixing the fundamental problem involves making the people healthier in general, which will rumble the very foundations of Wall Street.
One of the great powers of federalism is not having to duplicate efforts for every state. It also reduces cost by allowing 'one-size-fits-all' and economies of scale, rather than each state having its own bespoke whatever.
Many countries around the world enjoy the benefits of coordinated public health departments. Part of the United States' poor response to COVID was because there was no central public health department that could work closely with state agencies to e.g. provide data about what's going on, share best clinical practices, etc. Each state is an island.
So no, I don't agree that the only goal of the federal government should be piggy bank. States should have a lot of latitude with their policies, but generally standardizing things across the nation would be a net positive.
Many countries around the world are the size of US States. The UK and Germany are only twice the size of California, for example.
The problem in the US isn't that we can't do things, it's that nobody can agree on what to do. And to solve that problem, let states do their own thing as much as we can, and it'll become obvious where the good systems are.
Or in other words, an argument needs to be made why the EU "works" with individual "states" doing their own thing, but the US cannot "work" unless it's considered as one large country.
> analogy is quite misleading, because, in addition to California, there is also Wyoming, with a population of less than <600k
Wyoming has the population of Malta [1][2] but the GDP/capita of the United States and Norway [3][4]. It should be expected we'd have a different optimal solution from California.
It's the general knee-jerk reaction that's brought out whenever people try and have modern ideas for the US, like modern healthcare or high-speed rail. "B-but, it's so big!"
Sure, but fighting the impulse to solve problems at the Federal level that could/should be solved at the State level doesn’t preclude individual states from building multi-state solutions together.
Scalia was right in saying that the checks and balances slowing things down is a feature, not a bug. The Framers were right about protections against faction. I’m not sure they understood how badly malicious schemers could deliberately manipulate the system. Things just aren’t getting done, and it is killing people.
Half of the problem with American politics these days is people from blue and red states trying to force the entire country to become one giant blue state or one giant red state.
It's too big for one-size-fits-all answers. Every state should be able to largely do its own thing as long as it isn't violating the Bill of Rights.
If you look at some of the more controversial bills being passed in the states, they're also being more or less lifted out of national political action committees and think tanks. Extreme in-state gerrymandering (supported by national party organizations) has effectively nationalized big parts of state politics in those states.
I've spent the majority of my adult life in Washington State and I've witnessed this firsthand. This place used to have a unique vibe that was more purplish-blue "granola hippies with guns that just want to be left alone." Progressivism mixed with an Old West libertarian streak. There was a GOP minority, and the red east and blue west played off against each other and kept things reasonably center-left.
Now it's a one-party state, and the legislature might as well be the state Parliament, taking its marching orders straight from the DNC. The Governor is just as all-in on drinking the blue Kool-aid, and the state Supreme Court seems like it only exists to validate what the other two branches decide. And looking at places like Texas and Florida, seems like the same is happening on the other side of the aisle.
What's infuriating is there are conservatives in blue states and liberals in red states getting just steamrolled to the point of "why should I even vote or participate, when I'm just going to get told to sit down and shut up?" That's not healthy for democracy. The rights of the minority exist for a reason and you can't just vote things away because you have 50.01 percent of the vote.
Yeah, it seems very unfair. If Party A has 60% of the seats in the state legislature, and Party B has 40%, then intuitively it feels like Party A should get 60% of what it wants. But as you said, Party A actually gets more like 100% of what it wants.
This is a thing where having more parties would really help. If there were (say) 4 parties, each with ~25% of the seats, then they would have to bargain with each other and form coalitions, which I think would be a really healthy process for democracy.
> This is a thing where having more parties would really help.
Using a "first past the post" voting system structurally results in a two party system, because if there are more than two viable parties then the two parties most similar to each other split the vote and both lose to the third, which gives the first two an overwhelming incentive to merge with each other.
Score voting or STAR voting fixes this and allows you to have multiple parties. (Avoid IRV or similar systems, nearly anything is better than FPTP but if you're going to do it at all then do it properly.) Any states that could enact this via referendum are encouraged to do so.
Our first two presidents, Washington and Adams, both envisioned a system that could really only work if we had a large plurality of parties.
Washington in particular despised political parties and called them inherently self-serving.
Adams said that a two party system would destroy democracy, because such a system encourages despotic tribalism, in which party dissension inevitably focuses around revenge politics.
There's a massively underused middle ground -- instead of 1 or 50 different systems we could have a small N. One example would be emissions standards, where N is basically 2 -- the federal standard and the California standard, with some states choosing to use the California standard instead of the federal standard. This happens because that's their only 2 choices because of weird historical events, but imagine it happening by deliberate choice where the other states co-operate more with California in setting the more restrictive standard. States should be co-operating more often.
I really like this idea. And it lets ideas grow more organically: instead of a promising pilot program in (say) Maryland which then tries to go national, there can be a club which grows gradually. Another state joins the club in 2026, then another two in 2027, then...
> generally standardizing things across the nation would be a net positive.
The person you replied to said
> federal... should be restricted to providing...basic guidelines that have to be met
You may be closer in opinion than you realize.
Btw what the person you responded to described is how the Canadian healthcare system - which many liberal-type Americans on Reddit appear to admire - works. The federal government sets standards and provides some funding. The provinces implement it their own way.
Exactly - the key is to have very high-level and outcome-driven guidelines and not trying to micromanage everything; that allows various methods to be tried, and the best ones will start to be emulated.
(Another underlying reality is that the vast majority of people will say education and healthcare are "very important" but very few people will move to improve either of those - beyond going out of state for college.)
> very few people will move to improve [education]
This is empirically false. People move to better school districts or enroll their children in private schools all the time. It doesn't require moving to a different state.
>One of the great powers of federalism is not having to duplicate efforts for every state. It also reduces cost by allowing 'one-size-fits-all' and economies of scale, rather than each state having its own bespoke whatever.
One of the great failings caused by federalism and those who simp for it is that when a bad solution is arrived upon or a solution becomes outdated immeasurable suffering is caused and prolonged by not letting those states who want to try and improve do so.
There were a dozen states who were on the precipice of having this solved before the feds stuck their dick in it. Remember Romneycare?
There are already numerous and simple policy levers that actually affect costs and cannot be gamed. Such as the age you become eligible for Medicare. You don't have to reach for anything innovative like global hospital budgets. I'm skeptical of your category of reforms - you really mean, "benign-looking administrative decisions," because if you're not making any hard choices, you're not making reforms. I would hardly call it "real efforts."
But I've been reading about our system, since I fell down a rabbit hole a couple years ago. Things are bad, yes, but there are actually interesting ideas out there, and real efforts at reform that are being tried.
For example, did you know Maryland has a different way of funding hospitals than most other states? [0] And that other states are interested in copying it?
[0] https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/1/22/21055118/m...