Ezra Klein praises Rick Perry’s book
This is not a boring book. More to the point, it’s not even a book about Rick Perry. It’s a book about Rick Perry’s ideas. And his big idea is that most everything the federal government does is unconstitutional.
The book is fundamentally about the 10th amendment: that’s the one that says, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
I think radical federalism is not as unworkable as you might think. As Ezra suggests it takes the United States in the direction of the Eurozone, but with a few crucial difference.
First, there is a US Treasury bond. That means the central government can issue debt independent of the several states. Which in turn means that US banks can hold Treasuries rather than state debt. This makes a state default less of crisis than national default in Europe.
Second, the US labor market is far more integrated. Language is the same across the states. The educational system is the same across the states. These standards are not likely to change.
Also, I think you would see more regional collaboration in the absence of a strong national government and that would provide for co-ordination and economies of scale on most issues. You would probably see the Northeast Corridor form into its own mini-nation. Similarly along the Pacific cost.
In the long run I don’t know if the organizational structure would make a huge difference either way but to be sure I don’t think its unworkable.
5 comments
Comments feed for this article
Monday ~ August 15th, 2011 at 7:24 pm
Dale
But… Rick Perry also opposes the existence of any federal education policies. Not sure where he stands on federal treasury bonds, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he opposed those too.
Monday ~ August 15th, 2011 at 8:10 pm
mn
Rick Perry is against the Federal Government until he isn’t. He rails against it with his hand held out ready and willing to take any federal funds. You mention educational and language standards. Perry is anti public education. Keep the people uneducated and willing to work for less would be fine by him. If he got his way he would have kept the rainy day fund intact and increased class size to 50+. What about environmental standards? Would states such as Texas be allowed to abolish all environmental standards which would have large implications on the rest of the nation? He is already floating an idea to abolish all federal regulation for 6 months.
Monday ~ August 15th, 2011 at 10:31 pm
Matthew Yglesias
I think to make it work you’d need some kind of fairly robust and credible federal commitment to providing a counter-cyclical budgetary cushion to state governments. But you could do it.
Monday ~ August 15th, 2011 at 10:44 pm
Angryman
It wouldn’t work because it can’t in the face of democracy. The main goal of “States Rights” and other nonsense is corporate goverence(aka plutocractic dictatorship). It gets rid of the bulk of federal laws they don’t like then they go into the states and take them over to make sure they stay dead. Eventually, the states will be abolished so such the history of the United States(whether that is ever acknowleged, frankly who cares).
At some point, you need to call a spade a spade. Crony Capitalist and “libertarians” are out to destroy America and allow for foreign conquest of its resources and parts, pumping it overseas in mass. This is the same scam that ‘communism’ was. Same coin, different side and method. The fact that the modern “progressivesphere” is afraid to use the language I use above shows their weakness and dis-masculinitized stature that has fallen into pathetic multi-culturalism. When that takes place, the only solution is national socialism to purge the foreign hoard and purify this country of the treason of whats known as “states rights”.
Tuesday ~ August 16th, 2011 at 2:00 am
teageegeepea
Most people don’t think enough about the optimal size of currency zones or national governments. My impression is that smaller countries tend to be better run.