In a New Jersey Star-Ledger guest column, former NJ Governor James J. Florio claims that Something is Fundamentally Wrong with American governance.
He writes:
For one sure thing, in all of our states, governors are being called upon to fund functions that are clearly beyond their states’ financial capabilities. The pandemic is the most glaring example. Clearly, the federal government should have stepped in much earlier with the resources needed to combat a once-in-a-lifetime virus. But the pandemic is far from the only example. The cost of higher education, health care, mass transit and government employee pensions are among others that outstrip the ability of states to do what needs to be done so everyone can thrive.
A case can be made that the pandemic, being a systemic issue that knows no political borders, is more a federal issue than a state issue in terms of governmental policy response. But the underlying standard should be individual rights protection..
Both higher education and normal health care are individual, not governmental, responsibilities. Of course, the federal government has already usurped the individual in the 65+ healthcare market. And the federal government largely funds higher education, through its student loan programs, Pell grants, and other methods.
Mass transit should be funded by users’ fares.
Government employee pensions, being a form of compensation, should be funded by the government the employee works for. Why should the federal government be taxing people across the country to fund my local police department?
Florio makes no bones about his real target:
Once you realize what a big problem this is, you can’t help but focus attention on the U.S. Constitution, which, since its adoption in 1787, has frequently been interpreted to largely assign to our state and local governments the responsibilities of dealing with issues of a magnitude that could not be imagined 234 years ago. The result often is counter-productive competition for resources among the 50 states to the detriment of their residents and the entire nation.
Florio doesn’t specify what “resources” the states supposedly compete for. But for sure, the Founders did not imagine the extent to which individual rights would be violated. The last sentence, concerning competition among the states, is particularly revealing. In a sense, competition between the states is precisely what the Founders aimed for. The point of federalism is precisely to balance power among the states, and between the state and federal governments. The Founders whole point was to roadblock centralization of power, the path to tyranny. Take the issue of taxation:
Having to rely on resources that rise or fall depending on economic conditions within a state’s borders is a highly imperfect way to meet human needs and make the public investments needed for equitable results. Meanwhile, states offer all kinds of tax breaks to lure businesses away from other states in the false hope that poaching will be the answer, though it never is.
Tax competition between the states is an example of the success of and need for the current division of power. That competition is perfectly legitimate. It serves the purpose of checking the taxing powers of the states. People and businesses flee in large numbers from higher tax states to lower tax states routinely. Florio, being a “progressive” Democrat, obviously doesn’t place much importance on individuals wanting to keep more of their own earnings, and spend it as they wish.
Moving to a more broad-based national system of taxation than exists today would free states from their dependency on fluctuating factors and bring a higher degree of uniformity and equity to revenue-raising at the national level — to say nothing about greater amounts of revenue. A carbon-based tax or a European-styled value-added tax are examples of possible options.
“Free” the states? The federal income tax has already given the federal government enormous powers it should not have. Taxation and government funding is control. The more the government taxes and spends, the more it controls what it spends on. Governments at all levels already tax and spend too much, and for too many illegitimate reasons (illegitimate from the standpoint of individual rights.) But at least we have the “competition for resources among the 50 states” to act as a check and balance. Florio wants to “free” the states from that competitive discipline, which really means diminishing the states’ accountability to their own citizens. Cutting the individual citizen out of the equation, and empowering the political and federal bureaucratic classes, is his entire point. The last thing we need is another “broad-based national system of taxation!”
I recently had a conversation with a man who bitterly complained that he and his wife both work full time and still can’t make ends meet. “What the hell is going on; what am I supposed to do?” he asked. “Who is to blame?” I suspect he would be more receptive to Donald Trump’s “answers” than to a discussion of state and local tax systems. But it’s a discussion we need to have if we’re honest about solving problems.
By all means, let’s discuss the bloated taxes, including the hidden tax on consumers masquerading as a “corporate income tax” that drives up the cost of consumer goods. And let’s remember that Florio wants to remove one of the restraints on taxes, the tax competition between the states.
Whatever the issue, applying old, increasingly ineffective or inequitable policies to new problems can only make matters worse and cause additional problems. It is time to review 1787 assumptions in light of 21st-century responsibilities.
Yes, let’s review, and reaffirm, the 1787 “assumptions”--the fundamental principles--that the Founders put in place. The Constitution was meant to divide governmental powers to prevent centralization and thus tyranny, and to stifle the ambitions of statists like Florio. Florio concludes:
This task is not for the faint-hearted. Some upholders of the status quo will fight to the death (usually for money); think tobacco, coal, assault weapons. But, the end goal — preserving our democracy — is worth the struggle.
The end goal of the Founders was not Democracy. It was a republic with a democratic process constitutionally limited by the ultimate safe space, inalienable individual rights. The principle of individual rights is a check on governmental power. Checks and balances is a check on government power. Both stand in the way of centralization and tyranny. The Constitution leaves plenty of room to devise solutions to problems that legitimately require governmental involvement, such as the pandemic. But the Left is looking beyond the legitimate functions of government, the protection of individual rights, to involve government in. Thus, like the attack on the Electoral College, Florio is continuing the Left’s attack on what is fundamentally right about American governance, the structural checks and balances embedded in the Constitution of 1787.
Related Reading:
QUORA: ‘Why does the Electoral College of the United States of America exist?’
Voting Rights are Not the ‘Most Fundamental Right’—or Even a Fundamental Right
The Conscience of the Constitution—Timothy Sandefur
No comments:
Post a Comment