Misaligned Costs and Benefits

The public's overwhelmingly favorable ratings for their individual representatives, while Congress as a whole enjoys overwhelmingly negative ratings, is a side effect of America's century long experiment with the Federal government's one-size-fits-all approach to governing. Constituents naturally prefer representatives that "bring home the bacon" for local projects however, the bacon is bought and paid for at the expense of the general public. Districts with high ranking representatives witness spending increases, which is a perverse system that produces perverse, unsustainable results.

The "benefits" of federal government subsidies, regulations, programs, and spending is not matched with any specific cost. In many cases the benefits of federal government policy are concentrated among a select group while the costs are dispersed across every American citizen. For every $1 Californians send to DC in taxes Californians receive ~$0.70 back. This arguably leads to a system ripe with inefficiency, inequity--due to the freedoms sacrificed by State citizens as we continue the Fed's one-size-fits-all experiment--and displeasure.

My ideal model is one where America followed a libertarian-like view of the Constitution--where the Feds played a more limited, nationally defined role and States took more responsibility for taxing and spending--State government policy would be more transparent than our current experiment of increased centralized/Federalized governing. In my ideal State-centered governing model the frustrations, inequity and inefficiencies associated with any policies that concentrate benefits and disperse costs are more glaring and harder to hide, if nothing more than for the simple reason there are fewer (absolute) number of citizens per State government than the absolute number of citizens per Federal government. Costs and benefits are more closely linked, which arguably leads to increased efficiency, equity, efficacy and happiness.