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Politics : View from the Center and Left
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To: Lane3 who wrote (439)6/6/2005 9:55:59 AM
From: Dale Baker  Read Replies (2) of 541414
 
To continue my cynicism:

One way to do that is take a more federalist approach, keeping the feds out of what has been assigned by the Constitution to the states.

Anyone who wins federal power in Washington will not voluntarily constrain their own power. Politicians run for office to do something with that power.

Another is to foster the culture of reinvention long term as smart business practice.

I was in government when reinvention was catching on. Of course, it vanished once Clinton-Gore was over. Career civil servants don't have enough power to maintain that momentum at all.

Another is a Supreme Court that will constrain the Congress.

With the "conservative" Congress threatening to impeach judges they don't like, this doesn't seem likely in the near future. Democrats generally like an activist court but they aren't so big on state's rights, so scratch that.

I don't subscribe to starving the feds as an approach because it doesn't work in practice, but I understand why people advocate the taxpayer strike and I suppose it could trigger something useful.

The starvation plan always starves one part of government while bringing in the ice cream trucks for some other sector. This latest budget with its pathetic "cuts" in a few trivial programs was a classic example.

Another is a catastrophe that shakes up the populace enough to change its attitude about Nanny Sam.

Catastrophes usually push people more into the arms of big government. Even if the dollar craters and oil soars and the economy falls into the crapper, the next president will be elected on a list of new programs to "fix" the mess from the current bunch.

I agree the situation is way overstretched and shouldn't last forever. Without the good graces of our friends in Japan and China, this goose would have been cooked a long time ago.
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