Posted by
Andrews on Tuesday, December 18, 2007 2:58:25 PM
For the first time I have put up 4 posts in one day. A record! Hurrah!
Now, on to the actual substance:
I was posting comments on yet another FairTax article and put a bit more thought into my plan for returning to direct state funding of the federal government. As readers know, I prefer this to most other schemes, as it makes taxation a more local matter, more under individual control, more responsive, and, by setting up 50 different tax schemes in the 50 states, gives us some choice as to how much and how we want to be taxed, a choice we don't have with a unified national tax system.
However, I thought of one more benefit: The states themselves will finally start acting in our interests instead of their own. Right now, it is in the interest of the states to fight for more money from the Department of Education, more federal highway funds, etc. as that money is otherwise just going to the feds or to another state.
Once they are footing the bills, they will be paying for these things, and I doubt any state will want to send $100M to the feds, to have $20M extracted by the bureaucracy and the rest returned as education funds.
So, for once, the states themselves will be fighting for federal restraint, and there will actually be state governments fighting AGAINST pork, rather than scrambling to get the biggest share they can.
To help this, I suggest that, when we repeal the 16th Amendment, we also repeal the 17th. If the states are directly funding the federal government, their interests will lie more with the citizens than the central government, and it would be in their interest to appoint fiscally conservative senators. So I think it only right that, if the states are footing the bills, the legislatures of the various states be allowed to appoint a voice in the congress.
It would also be a good first step in destroying Lincoln and FDR's omnipotent central government, and returning to a true federation of sovereign states.
UPDATE
My original comment was worded better than the whole of what I wrote above, so I will reproduce it below:
If we return to a state funding of the federal government we get one more advantage: Choice.
If you have one federal system, that's all there is. Don't like the FairTax? Too bad, that's what we have!
If
we have states fund the federal government (as intended originally) we
have 50 different states, and if you REALLY love the FairTax, you can
move to the FairTax states, or the Flat Tax states, or the good ol'
income tax states or the rob-me-blind-true-blue states (like my state
of MD)... You can vote with your feet for the tax system you like, and,
as revenues rise and fall, politicians in other states may even notice
the preferences of the payers.
Not so with a single federal plan
(Flat, fair, or other). We have no way to make our will heard, except
every 2 or 4 years in elections, and probably not even then. Much
better to have a choice we can enact any time we want, than a CHANCE to
vote them out every 2 or 4 years and hope the new lot gets it right.
I should have just replaced the above with that, but, if anything, I am honest about my shortcomings, so I will admit I worded things better by accident than I did when actually sitting down and thinking about what to write.