Time to Resurrect State Sovereignty

It is time for the states of this country to reclaim their rightful role in solving the problems of the people for which they stand.

As Barry Goldwater noted in 1960 in Conscience of a Conservative: “Nothing could so far advance the cause of freedom as for state officials throughout the land to assert their rightful claims to lost state power; and for the federal government to withdraw promptly and totally from every jurisdiction which the Constitution reserved to the states.”

Today, as we watch the federal government leviathan engage in social engineering and economic wealth redistribution on a massive scale, there has never been such clearer understanding of the call that Senator Goldwater made nearly half a century ago.

Federalism as a principle strongly adhered to by most Americans died in the Civil War when the South and the Democrats were the strong supporters of it, and it became tied in the public mind with the defense of slavery. The income tax and the growth in the Federal government has continued to erode the power of states and localities. To bring back federalism as the founders envisioned it would take Ronald Reagan as President, Newt Gingrich’s Congress, and a Supreme Court with 5 Scalia’s, Bork’s, and Thomas’s . . . and it would take them in largely continuous power for decades to unwind the mess that we voters have created. That’s the opportunity we lost when Ronald Reagan selected George Bush as Vice President and put the establishment Republican liberals back in power after 8 years of his leadership. Bush was Reagan’s greatest mistake.

It’s way past time.

In order for states to stand free, they need to be financially independent of Uncle Sam. It’s the most effective trick in the fed’s trick bag to enslave states with a never-ending supply of “free” money.

It’s how the feds keep people enslaved through welfare programs.

And it continues and continues and continues.

If we really want to put an end to slavery, we need to be free of the fed’s purse strings. Otherwise, they’ve got us where they want us.

— Jane Reinheimer

The States have gone willingly down the primrose path to surrendering their sovereignty. It was a path paved with dollar bills at first, then five dollar bills and now one thousand dollar bills. Time and again they took the money from the feds with little or no thought to strings that were attached, or what the next step would require of them. Each new path led them farther into the woods. States are so far into the woods now that nothing short of a revolution will show them the way out.

Until politicians at every level find the balls to quit spending so much to keep themselves in office nothing is going to change. Water boards, school districts, drainage boards, sidewalk and gutter improvement boards, children's boards, fire districts, street light districts, flood control boards, the list goes on and on. Until ANY board, district, etc. that has the authority to levy and spend tax money learns to say no it's not going to change.

It starts at the lowest level, usually a homeowners association that wants to protect property values in a subdivision and it goes up from there. At its worst these little guys take a grant from someone bigger and with that grant comes new controls by someone somewhere else over the individual property owner. At its worst it's the feds paying to feed kids in a voluntary pre-K program in Sebring, FL. And with that comes control of the pre-K program itself by the feds.

We can send all the tea bags we want, but it's not going to change until we learn to stop giving up control of our lives in return for an apparent benefit. It's always the same. The benefit it there to start with and the cost is small. But as we move on to the next benefit we leave behind those who are increasing the cost of the benefits we've already enjoyed and long since forgotten.

We have no one to blame but ourselves. It starts with that referendum that sets up a Children's Board to ‘help the children’ by imposing a minimal tax on every property owner. In twenty years that Board is controlling virtually every aspect of child care in the county and doing it at an astronomical cost. By the time enough people are aware of the danger this board represents to the ability of parents to raise their own children it's too late. The board has a thousand or more employees, giant buildings and offices all over the county and it's manged to get some its wishes legislated into state law.

Once again, we've met the enemy and it's us!

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