Blue and Red States should unite to call the convention of states returning sovereignty to the state

What about use of airwaves and the FCC?

What about cars being safe? What about design of roads? What about bridge safety? What about railroad safety?

What about drug safety?

What about the SEC and its protection for patents and copyrights?

What about the FED, securities and exchange, banking, etc.

What about the first amendment?

What about states that decide federal services should receive a pittance - or simply refuse to pay? How much does CA believe our unbelievably stupendous national defense is actually worth?

What about states getting into a race to the bottom on healthcare, social services, food, etc.

The list goes on and on and on.

 

Federal government has authority over the airways but has no authority over what can and cannot be aired on it, that would fall to the states. So they could grant licenses but could not regulate what is aired on Radio or TV.

The Federal government would control the interstate highways but not intrastate and car manufacturing standards.

Drug regulation would be 100% state power. All federal drug laws would be repealed.

This would be kept with the federal government but reduced back to the 20 years that the constitution allowed.

Banking would remain federal and the dollar would remain the default currency however states could if they wish opt for their own currency, and the redistribution of money from rich to poor states would end.

The states would have full control over the 5 freedoms of the first amendment. Same with the rest of the bill or rights.

The military would be completely run by the states and only be able to be called up for defense of the nation not as the aggressor in the war. So upkeep would be on a state by state basis and the military equiptment would be split up based on per capita enrollment in the military so the states with the most active members get the most stuff.

The Food regulation would be kept federal since produce is interstate, but everything else on that list would be left to the states.

I think if we return power to the states and make politics local again you would see better functioning states as politicians would actually face repercussions for their actions vs being bailed out or blaming the feds.

 

1. this is america. state legislators are owned by billionaires.

2. the states are a useless and redundant expense. want lower taxes?

3. i don't much care about american samoa, but current states, esp red states, contributed to this debt and by god and wmd you're gonna hang around and help pay for it.

 

Why do you think states can't agree on common practices?

 

Exactly the situation with congress, the only other body that can propose amendments. There have been close to 12,000 amendments proposed in congress though few got out of committee and only about 33 actually passed and were sent to the states to ratify of which 27 succeeded. It is unlikely that a convention of the states to propose amendments would result in more than a half dozen or so if that, and less than those proposed are likely to be ratified by 3/4 of the states. Everything is not on the table. There has never been a convention of the states because it is infinitely more difficult and cumbersome to set up, though the founders, framers, and ratifiers viewed it as absolutely essential as the only tool to reign in a over bearing federal government.

 

https://jbs.org/concon/legislators/...Ukhy5nXBZxZ31g3f8UR0Yt4r79fBlcjG6nHrBBwEuHSno

Let the legislators who have been asked speak for themselves. Everything can be on the table.

 

States have different ideas pretty much on every topic.

Plus, individual states can't raise the funds to manage many of these areas. They can't each do the work of the FDA, the CDC, the SEC, the DoD (I was shocked to see that one in the list of what should be done by states), the FCC, the NTSB, the FAA, and other places where we need one solution and where it's also far cheaper to have one solution rather than 50 states trying to do it all.

 

You may not be aware but the states already have their own versions of virtually every major federal cabinet department. When a single solution is required then the states would have to come together on it. In my version the federal government would still be responsible for resolving interstate disputes as I mentioned in an earlier post. It is clearly a power given to federal government in the constitution. Personally I would put NTSB in the private sector and FCC in the states with the same requirement to agree on standards. I think the only reasonable purpose for the FCC is to allocate radio frequencies and regulate transmitting power. That is a simple thing that wouldn't require a department. Just meeting every year or so to deal with any required changes. FCC has no business messing with content. The whole thing could be managed by a handful of people.

CDC belongs in the private sector. FDA belongs in the states. The states already have that function interestingly enough. DOD is one of the enumerated powers of federal government and should remain there. SEC could be a normal function of the justice department in federal government for issues relating to crimes. It might work better in the private sector for other issues, however.

In my "fantasy" The states would collect all taxes and support the federal government for the services it provides to them (not to us.) In other words states would raise money like they do now through taxation. The closer government is to the people, the better.

Everything is cheaper outside the federal government. EVERYTHING.

 

You're forgetting that the private sector works when there is a profit to be made.

Doing something once is less expensive than doing it 50 times and then debating the differences. Much of your solution ignores that there is real work involved.

Your ideas on taxes basically create a race to the bottom in that no state wants to pay for anything. Like our federal budget, NOBODY wants to pay for anything. The competition between states for low taxes will ensure that the solutions we need will not be provided.

 

Once more. The states are already doing it 50 times. Again the idea is to have less government. It is easier to have less state government than less federal government given the current system. So a race to be smaller is good. People don't mind paying for actual value, something that isn't available from federal government. They may not want to have things from the states and those things will then go away. It is as it should be, not how it is.

 

No, they are not "doing it 50 times".

No race to the bottom stops at some reasonable point.

 

why would it be a race to the bottom?

 

Because an individual state could decide that the want industry enough to allow them to use their rivers as a toilet, to pollute the air, to forgive them from paying taxes, to ignore infrastructure needs, to concede legislative influence, to ignore healthcare needs of the population, to ignore drug testing (like we do for homeopathy), etc., etc.

Then, other states would see huge pressure to follow.

 

louisiana is still recovering from jindal's race to the bottom. 8 years in and we're still paying for that 1% he got in new hampshire.

 

Good point, but also they would need to convince voters to allow that, when the vast majority of power is returned to the states and its state laws that affect your way of life, people will pay attention to state elections, doing any of that stuff you listed is a good way to lose any sane voters vote next election.

 

many states are likely to have 1 or 2 major industries. such states are very easy for these industrues (and the men who control them) to control the state politicians with carrots and sticks. cities (esp small towns) are worse.

many of the problems facing america and the planet are global, and must be solved on a global level. but of course, if you want deadly pandemics and don't want to tax global corporations, you can still remove all power from the cities to the state as texas did today

 

Hell no, I wouldn't support the creation of a confederacy.

 

We aren't required to agree on everything, not even most things. It's called "democracy".

 

I used to support ideas like this more, but then both parties decided that the insaner a person is, the more cut out they are for a leadership position. I don't trust either of them at this point, but what conservatives are doing at the state level is just more appalling to me than what the democrats are trying at the national level, so no. A pox on both their houses.