The 17th Amendment and Mark Levin

April 11th, 2013 | Mark Levin

[1010RD]

So in the fight by liberals for national uniformity (to their will and vision) what’s more important? Money.

Block grant it to the states and starve the federal government. It’s the supposition of liberals that the federal government is better than the state government. That’s not true.

Let redundancies that focus on intrastate issues be resolved within that state. Block grant the funds, ideally without limitation, and federalism thrives.

How else can you undo the federal monster politically? This is feasible and has the political cover necessary - we’re keeping the same funds, moving them closer to the people/issue/problem and therefore the solution.

People don’t trust or believe in DC.

[Political Junkie Too]

I agree that block granting back to the states is more feasible than cutting off the money flow to the federal government at the start. We'll just have to live with the fact of the feds siphoning off money from the states just to (we hope) give it back to them later.

My original point had to do with party bloc politics as the motive for Senators, not state issues. The point of the Senate spending recklessly was supported by Senators owing fealty to the party because of the necessity of running for elections. They become obligated to endorse the party agenda because of accepting campaign cash.

This is also true regarding the liberal agenda that often conflicts with the wishes of the people of certain individual states. Liberals believe in national uniformity, as you state, whereas Republicans believe in more local control. My point is that I think it would be harder for Senators to fall in line with a liberal national uniformity agenda if they were appointed by their state legislatures. It's the need for campaign funds that pushes them to support the party bloc agenda over their respective state agenda.

In this case, the "money" is campaign money, not crony capitalism money, which is also a problem. My concern is that block granting back to the states is a de facto transfer of power from Congress to the states, which might make it also a difficult task to accomplish. Today, some money goes back to the states via federal programs, but much money also goes offshore as foreign aid. I'm not against foreign aid, but I want wise foreign aid. I don't understand why Obama would bypass a Congressional ban on purchasing Russian helicopters, when he could spend that money here on our own aeronautics industry. The same goes with funding questionable groups or countries, while at the same time claiming hurt with needed domestic services. If states only sent enough money to Washington to fund Constitutional services, and then let the states perform those services in place of the federal government, we wouldn't become the world's ATM machine.

If that vision were to occur, it would fly in the face of liberal national uniformity. They would complain that Rhode Island or Idaho won't be able to offer the same quality of social services as California or Massachusetts, so it won't be fair that the random act of being born there limits one's access to quality services. Then we'd get Obama's favorite strawman argument, which child is more important to you, the sick child in Idaho or the starving child in Rhode Island? Liberals think they need a behemoth federal government to make it fair and equal across the entire country.

-PJ