How the System Works

The uneasy feeling that many Americans have, that their country has
changed, but they can't put their finger on how or why...and the outrage that
many have with how Washington politicians do business, is based on the
common sense intuition that they're getting hosed.  It's a free country, but
it's been getting less and less free for many years.

That America was the only country in the world founded on the  unique
concept that there were freedoms and rights that belonged either to individuals,
or to the states that those individuals resided in, and did NOT belong to the
federal government, was what made it exceptional.

But gradually, bit by bit over many years, the federal government has
crept into control of many areas that were never intended to be
regulated by Washington.

Education was supposed to be controlled by the individual states and/or
by local communities.

Welfare was supposed to be a state program.  It was never supposed to
funded by, or mandated from, Washington.  How did that happen?

Healthcare was never supposed to be mandated and funded from our
nation's capital, but it gradually became a federal program imposed on
states by Obamacare.

Granted, all these programs were created with the best of intentions.  They
were designed to deal with real problems that people had, and they
helped many people, by forcefully taking money from many more people.

But they were not problems that the federal government was supposed to
solve...they were supposed to be handled at the state level, and one of
the unintended (or maybe intended) consequences of federalizing these
problems is that power came to be consolidated in Washington.

How did Washington consolidate that power?  By using the power to tax
the American people to accumulate enough money to influence (bribe?)
the states and local communities to follow their suggestions (orders?).

It's ironic that the feds tax the citizens of the states in order to raise the
money that the feds give back to the states...and that money gives the 
feds control of the programs and the ability to regulate them. That's how
power ends up in Washington, even if that power was, Constitutionally,
never supposed to reside there.

And the really sad part of this is that many (if not all) of the states ceded
this power to the feds voluntarily.  Local politicians knew there were
limits to the amount of taxes their local citizens would stand to pay for
these programs, and, if they pushed too hard for higher taxes, they
could be on the street after the next election.

It was easier to take the money, and the orders, from the Feds.  Now,
Washington has the power, and the responsibility for dealing with a
national debt that continues to rise and rise.

How do I know that this is a power issue between the feds and the states?
Because no Washington politician (NONE, not even ONE) EVER talks
about returning the responsibility for raising the money that funds these
programs to the states or local communities.

In the Halls of Congress, no Democrat or Republican, no Liberal or
Conservative, ever suggests that the federal government should lower
the federal tax rate and eliminate funding these programs to pass the
control and responsibility back to the states, where it originally belonged.
The feds still want to collect those taxes, and keep that control.

The most radical comment you'll get out of Congress is an occasional
Conservative who calls for returning the money to the states in a "block
grant" so that the states can "spend it as they see fit"...as if the states
won't figure out where the money is coming from and continue to worry about
what Washington feels is "the fit way to spend the money".

There's an old saying in business about the "golden rule".  "He who has the gold,
sets the rules."  That applies equally well to the federal government's power to tax,
regulate, and control.

It's time to revisit the original principles our federal government was founded upon,
and begin to roll back the leviathan to a more limited, fiscally responsible, and
sustainable form.