I would go even farther. Why should the residents of say Richmond VA pay for road improvements in Roanoke VA? Why should they pay at all if a private company is willing to do so in exchange for a toll?
Sadly, the residents of both places are taxed for roads at the federal and state level thay they may never use.
My point in my earlier post was that we’re not talking Federal or state revenues, but YOUR revenues taken out of YOUR pocket.
I never had a fire in my home, but that doesn't mean that my taxes to pay for the fire department was unfair to me, and nor would road repairs be for streets that I never use. They all contribute to the quality of life that I expect in return from the social contract.
Now, does that social contract extend to the nation as a whole? That's the nub of the matter. When the Constitution was ratified, the people of Massachusetts expected the people of Virginia to take care of their own. They limited the federal government to common defense, disputes between states, and a single voice to other nations. The rest was left to the sovereign states to address individually as each saw fit to the peculiarities of their own state.
The Congress was to be where these matters were debated and agreed to. If money were to be taken from the people, the people's representatives would have a say. The justifications for taking the money would be for a common interest among the several states, which the Senate would have determined to be necessary.
Today, the Senate no longer represents the states. I would suggest that it doesn't represent the people, either. It represents amorphous interests from ambiguous sources with undefined agendas. The Senators themselves are motivated by paying for the next election. They have aligned around party, and recently have seen their parties shift from under them. I'd go further and say that the old-timers like Reid, McConnell, Hatch, McCain, Feinstein and the rest, are blind to the ramifications of the changes going on around them. They are stuck in a mindset of controlling their station in life because it's what they've been doing for most of their lives. It's what they Know how to do, and so is their hammer to all the problem nails that they see.
That's why a movement to restore the Senate back to the states can only be done by the states via an Article V convention. What we have to do is convince state lawmakers that they are not subservient to federal lawmakers, that Senators are not their "betters" but their representatives, and that they have independent power if they are bold enough to take it.
-PJ