Sorry Feds, One Size Doesn't Fit All

It's not that libertarians don't like government, it's just that we don't trust big, powerful, central governments...largely because when a central government gets as big as ours, it tends to look out for itself and the politically powerful, rather than looking out for our best interests.

Above and beyond the typical "special interests are ruining Washington" argument, for which there is much legitimacy, the federal government's one-size-fits-all approach to governing has it's limitations. To be clear--and I believe I speak for most libertarians--I want states to have more power because states are better suited to design and execute their own programs and policies that are most beneficial to their citizens. The Fed's one-size-fits-all approach acts as a large plastic bag that currently suffocates the states taxing and governing powers.

Per a libertarian's interpretation of the Constitution and the 10th amendment, the federal government should: maintain a national defense, maintain strong courts, protect our civil liberties and rights (e.g. discrimination), regulate interstate commerce--which was mainly established as a response to a slew of damaging inter state tariffs that crimped trade and economic growth, but could be extended to issues surrounding the environment.

But at the 50,000 foot level, I believe the federal government should transfer more programs to the states because it's harder to please 311 million people than 30 million, and a policy that "works" (i.e. achieve its stated benefits at the stated costs) in NY doesn't mean it will "work" in CA or Texas.

For instance, progressives love to use the Scandinavian countries as an example of well run, strong central governments. The Scandinavians have strong safety nets, relatively good economic growth, more efficient and effective healthcare than the U.S., and one of the least corrupt governments on Earth. Progressives point to Scandinavia and say, "see, look at their strong central government model...it works great!"

The reason Scandinavia's model works better than the U.S. is because the average number of citizens in the five Scandinavian countries is 5 million. It's much easier for 5 million citizens to oversee government programs, than for 311 million Americans to oversee our federal government's programs.

Progressives argue that America's federal government should be strong, provide safety nets to all 311 million citizens, blah blah blah. The oft cited theory among progressives is a strong central government leads to "increased efficiency". Haha! That's a funny joke. If you imagine the government as a business (bear with me), it would be near impossible to efficiently manage $3.5T in spending, and effectively (and equitably) execute hundreds of thousands of regulations, programs, etc. In reality, it just doesn't work out too well and we are all left with a bad taste in our mouths. It's like that saying "different strokes for different folks".

Imagine if we approached our federal and state governments like the Scandinavians...if Utah's 2.3 million citizens don't want to run a social security program and CA's 36 million citizens do, it would be easier for the disgruntled citizens of Utah to move to CA compared to another another country outside the U.S. Or the disgruntled citizen could participate with other citizens and argue for a Utah Social Security program, and could cite CA's safety net successes as evidence to establish such a program in Utah.

I believe this would establish a platform of competition among the 50 states, and provide an incentive for the 50 states to innovate new policies that best serve the citizens of these great united states (purposefully lower case).

Summary:

• Different strokes for different folks! One size doesn't fit all.
• The federal government has NO competition, and therefore no incentive to get better. Transferring power to the 50 states creates competition, and competition almost always directly benefits the consumer (if you don't believe that then we have problems).
• Rather than a federal government overseeing hundreds of thousands of tasks at the risk of running them poorly, the feds should instead focus on a dozen or so tasks and do them well. This will make our citizenry oversight duties much easier compared to the major cluster f&#% that is the current reality of Washington DC.
• We all have certain unalienable liberties and rights that state governments cannot take away and the federal government should protect those rights if a state violates them.