> You say that, even though the U.S. is actually composed of 50 largely self-governing states
Each war and crisis has ratcheted up centralized power, typically by way of granting war time powers that never seem to completely fade away.
To help illustrate, money is an important proxy to government power, and the federal government spends roughly twice that of all state governments combined ($3.8T vs $2T).
> Have they tried, and did they fail?
The federal government has welfare programs that can be augmented by the states. California, for example, does this with food stamps (SNAP to CalFresh), health care for the poor (Medicaid to MediCal), and welfare for families (TANF to CalWORKS). To fund these, among other services (e.g., the University of California system), California has the highest state income tax in the nation (topping out at 13.3% for those earning over $1M).
I imagine that some states do not go much beyond the minimal federal programs.
For example, starting in 2014, Medicaid (health care for the poor) was expanded to cover those earning under 138% of the poverty line (a perfect example of the confusing way in which assistance is determined). Many states chose not to expand Medicaid, so they will not receive additional federal funding for the program. States that did, however, will.
On the health care front, some states have attempted to introduce universal health care. California successfully passed a bill, only to be vetoed by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Only two successful instances come to mind: Vermont and Massachusetts.
Vermont passed a single-payer universal health care system in 2011. Unfortunately, I am ignorant of details on its implementation.
Massachusetts has "RomneyCare," which has since been augmented to strongly resemble (in my eyes) the Swiss health care scheme. Insurance is mandatory, but coverage cannot be denied. Private insurance is subsidized by government. Health care costs are heavily regulated.
> If being the 5th largest economy in the world and contributing more tax dollars to the Federal government than it receives is largely dysfunctional, that sounds pretty awesome. California has tons of problems but I can't think of many less dysfunctional states.
1. Simply being the 5th largest economy in the world doesn't say enough about how successful it is in its goals. Incidentally, California suffers from the worst amount of income inequality in the Union, and the highest rate of poverty. The income required to afford the median home in California is on average higher than just about anywhere else in the Union, even when you take into account the higher local salaries.
2. Because the largest Federal government expenditures are in 1) Social Security, 2) Medicare, and 3) the military (in that order), the states in the Union that will receive the most Federal tax dollars are the ones that have the most elderly people and the most military bases per capita. That California contributes more than it receives isn't a particular strong indicator of its health as a State. You could argue that states with more Medicaid recipients are more dysfunctional, but because Medicaid only constitutes ~15% of the Federal budget, it's less consequential to the variance than {SS, Medicare, Defense}.
> For example, Texas has the second largest economy amongst the states, and would be the world's 10th largest economy, but IMO it's more dysfunctional than California because it's on the dole for $50bil annually from the rest of the country. They subsidize their low taxes by sponging off the other states, including California and New York.
Okay, but no one here is arguing that Texas is a paragon of functional state governance. The argument is that California is a dysfunctional government. Both Texas and California can be dysfunctional for different reasons! On the flip side, Washington has no state income tax, is less dependent on the Federal government than California, AND enjoys a lower poverty rate. Ditto New Hampshire, Utah, Minnesota, Vermont, Maryland, Massachusetts, and Virginia.
A ranking of states by "quality of life"[1] ranks California at 19th.
> California is also hamstrung by the fact that isn’t its own country.
How? All the areas where California falls short—education, transportation, housing, healthcare, etc.—are ones left primarily to the states. For example, state and local governments provide 90% of educational funding, while the federal government provides only 10%. No federal law is stopping California from levying Sweden-like taxes to provide Sweden-like education, transportation, healthcare, and housing services.
It’s true that, under our system of progressive taxes, Californians pay a disproportionate share of federal taxes—because they make more money. They pay about 13% of all federal taxes, and get back about 83% of what they pay in federal services. That nets out to about $100 billion net transfer out. But that’s out of an economy of $3.9 trillion. That’s just 2.5% of California’s GDP. That money isn’t what’s standing between California and having high quality social services.
> much of the funding that US states are reliant on comes from the Federal government, mainly because the US Federal government is allowed to do things that the states already do and thus to require the funding for it, which means that many state programs are in fact funded by the Federal government.
Besides Medicaid, the vast majority of State-administered services are paid for through State taxes — a combination of income, sales, and property taxes. The vast majority of Federal taxes go toward Medicare, Social Security, the US Military, and Medicaid — all of those comprise 80% of the Federal budget. Besides Medicaid, none of those other things are State-level programs.
> This means that the Federal government, if it disagrees with a decision of a State, can cripple it by withdrawing funding.
This only applies to Federal highway funding. The Federal government has little control over how States fund their public K-12 schools, public universities (for eg Georgia funds its University system by taxing the lottery), electricity, water, sewage, police departments, fire departments, local public transportation, or public libraries. Further, the Federal government recently cut taxes, making way for States to fill in the gap to further cement control over their own finances. In fact, there is nothing stopping States from increasing the marginal tax rate back to WW2 levels.
> So essentially, de jure States and Provinces are more or less equal in autonomy, but in practice Provinces have much more sovereignty.
Not sure how you think this. US States are arguably more sovereign than Canadian provinces. The States exert more control over the affairs of the Federal government through its equal representation in the Senate. While Canada also has a Senate, in reality, it's like the Queen in that it totally lacks democratic legitimacy and could not actually stop major legislation from the House of Commons without sparking a Constitutional crisis. The Senate basically can force the Commons to vote on amendments, but does not block the government's agenda. This is simply not the case in the US.
Every State has its own Constitution, Legislative Branch, Executive Branch, and a State judiciary that enforces its own Constitution. Most US States even have their own military[1]. Americans are Constitutionally citizens both of the Federal republic and of the state in which they reside.
> The economies of scale that make public healthcare work require you to either control the market or a significant portion of it in order to strong arm the suppliers, A few US states such as California might be able to, but the Federal government would very likely interfere.
Yes, and every state has the ability to do this. Pharma providers, Hospitals, and doctors would be forced to accept a State single payer insurance plan, or they would have to either leave the state or go out of business. A provider in Chicago isn’t competing for patients in Florida. Pharma companies that supply medicine and supplies can either decide to accept lower revenues in a State, or stop operating in the state. The resulting vacuum from doing so presents an opportunity for new Pharma entrants (perhaps even homegrown in those states).
> States do have strong incentives to improve things for their residents, which is why, once ACA programs like state exchanges and Medicaid expansion are implemented, they are popular.
But this is just defending the general concept of such a program, not a reason it has to be constructed at the federal rather than state level.
> Many state elected leaders, however, have strong individual incentives to avoid any change that exposes previously hidden costs to their constituents, because then their opponents can accuse them of raising spending and/or taxes.
How is it that federal elected leaders are immune from this incentive? And if they are, isn't that bad, because they would then for the same reason have no incentive to implement programs efficiently?
> The idea that federal taxes are money stolen from states, for example, is a classic state politician talking point.
It's a straightforward economic effect. Bob earns his wages which are then spent by some combination of Bob, the state government and the federal government. If the federal government takes more then the state government and Bob get less, and Bob is going to be in a bad way if there isn't enough left to make rent.
Meanwhile if the federal government uses the money for Medicaid then the state doesn't have to collect the money the federal government spends on it, but then it's the federal program setting the terms -- and if the state doesn't like those terms, Bob still has to pay all of the same federal taxes. The state can't use his money to operate their own program instead.
Federal spending is currently ~25% of GDP, which is more than it is for most states -- and a huge chunk of the money attributed to states is the state portion of the money required to implement federal programs. By the time you also pay for state programs whose funding couldn't reasonably be reallocated to something else, there is nothing really left. The states have lost the ability to try to do better because the federal government has locked up all the money.
> But I think you might be surprised how many federal actions are secretly supported by state officials who publicly campaign against them.
Well of course they do. They're opportunistic politicians. If they can't reasonably implement useful programs because the money they'd have to spend is already going to the feds then their remaining option is to claim credit for not spending it.
The point is, what would happen if the states were actually left with both the problems and the resources to solve them?
> Universal healthcare requires high buy-in and very different systems from what we have now.
States can regulate all of them. They are under no requirement to follow federal policy. In fact, they can even erect pretty substantial border controls (like California does) and send armies to protect their borders, if they really want to (yes this has actually been done outside the civil war).
For example, California recently 'threatened' to start universal health care. I'm unsure why the news framed it this way given that it has always been california's right to provide free health care to its citizens, and no one can really legally stop it. Perhaps California cannot raise enough money to do so, but that is an issue of feasibility, not legality. It's not like the feds would magically be able to raise money that California couldn't.
> Drinking age is tied to necessary federal highway funding, so states aren't going to lower the age.
Um sure, but states are not required to take federal funding for highways. That's like saying 'Aunt Irma requires me to send her a Thank You note whenever I ask for her knit sweaters', while neglecting to mention that you actually do want the knit sweaters because they keep you warm and cozy.
> and state governments makes some people forget that governments can actually be in the black.
I don't think it makes sense to include the states in that indictment. Most US states are dramatically better run fiscally than ~95%-97% of all national governments around the world based on debt & tax revenue levels. If you ranked the states with nations, the 50 states would all be among the top 100 nations on debt to revenue ratios, credit rating, stability and predictability of tax revenue. They often have to be fiscally sound by law. Out of the 50 states, only five or six tend to ever have serious or frequent fiscal problems (with California, New York and Illinois routinely having problems).
Florida for example has a $1 trillion economy, a $91b budget, and $1.7b in annual debt service costs. That ratio would be the envy of the world outside of a few nations. Most US states are in at least that good of condition or better on debt costs to revenue. Two dozen states are in essentially squeaky clean fiscal condition, as solid as any governments get outside of Norway.
Nearly all of the states get extremely good credit ratings. The particular exceptions are: Illinois, New Jersey, Kentucky (the last two still carry good ratings).
Even California is in good fiscal shape right now (after a ten year economic expansion of course). They can easily afford their annual debt costs.
> The State of California does not give anything to other states.
California and Californians should be considered as a whole, as one enables the other. Californian's pay federal taxes and they lose money on these.
> California is not even a huge giver, as it receives about $.95 [guestimated from the bar chart] for every $1 its people pay in federal taxes.)
Worth noting that this is still more than other states because of the size of the economy in question.
> My point is that California is not an obvious shining economic example. Whether DE, NY, and WY are making wise or foolish choices is unrelated to CA's choices.
If the field is "States in the US" then California's strategies are obviously demonstrating success. That California also has governance problems is inarguable (our petition system needs to change, you can't govern public policy in a vacuum from the budget). It doesn't invalidate the point.
The point is that California's stance on worker protection, health care, overtime, and libel have enabled its citizens to succeed despite a federal economy that its somewhat hostile to the states.
> On one hand I find the accountability good, but on the other I wish as a nation we cared less about “national conversations” and thought/acted more locally.
There are two main problems here, I think:
States and localities are usually not funded very well. With the exception of high-tax states like CA and NY, most states don't take in enough revenue to do anything of significant size, and residents are generally against tax hikes.
While the federal government was designed to be fairly limited, that's not remotely the case anymore, and even when states get money from the federal government, they're limited in what they can do with it. For example, several CA legislators would love to set up single-payer health insurance in CA, but federal Medicare dollars come with too many strings attached (and only the US Congress can grant CA the ability to use that money in different ways).
I feel like in many ways we have the worst of all worlds. The federal government doesn't want to invest in services for citizens, but the states and cities don't have enough money to do it themselves, and aren't allowed to do things with much of the money they get.
>4. Do we seriously trust the US Government to not mess this up? California is the [0]world's fifth-largest economy and still spends more than it takes in
That's because the citizens of California send most of their income taxes to the Federal government, where a portion of it is sent to red states to subsidize them. If California somehow seceded tomorrow and that money was sent to Sacramento instead, the state would suddenly have a budget surplus.
> Note that New Mexico already gets 37% of its state budget from the federal government,
California gets a lot of Federal aid too at 27%. New Mexico apparently takes 36% (nice rounding).
> and has among the highest per capita number of federal employees (both civilian and military).
So New Mexico, per capita, has the highest percentage of people working in governmentally mandated jobs, or public service workers, if you will. California should definitely pick up the slack.
> Californian tax payers are already heavily subsidizing New Mexico as it is.
By that logic, California should definitely allow in-state tuition to everyone in Kansas, New Jersey, Illinois, Nevada, North Dakota, Delaware, Connecticut, Hawaii, Virginia, and especially Alaska
...Because they are all subsidizing California as it is.
> For single-payer specifically, I’m not sure. If the federal government were indifferent, states could certainly try it; in fact Vermont did.
I mean, that's the whole point. If you can't even muster up the political will to do something at the state level, especially in deep-blue states, what hope is there of doing it at the Federal level? States need to prove that ideas work by actually trying them out and finding the right implementations.
> Where I disagree is that the states are generally on par with the federal government or their Canadian counterparts.
The argument is that States are on par with the Federal government and Canadian counterparts as it relates to healthcare policy and taxation, and I'm yet to hear a convincing argument to the contrary. Saskatchewan was able to enact single payer in 1947 despite being 1/20th the population of Canada at the time. Its ability to enter into relations with foreign governments or its political will to set a Provincial language is completely irrelevant to that.
> Others may be legally possible but are so politically implausible (Texas switching languages and dragging the federal government along).
The argument is about the structural right, not the political feasibility of it — and also nobody is arguing for dragging the Federal government along, even for healthcare.
Personally, I would actually like to see States try out different approaches to healthcare — Denmark-style single payer, Germany-style public/private hybrid, Switzerland-style individual mandate, Singapore-style HSA-driven care — so that we can have empirical data to prove which systems are superior.
> IMO, the Pacific coast states need to reject national health care, create a health-care pact between states that slowly grows larger by adding new states. If another state doesn't want to join, then, so be it.
It blows my mind that they don’t do this. During most of the 20th century, Democrat-run states wanted to tax Republican California to pay for social programs. So doing things at the national level was critical. But now that the states that have all the money are also run by Democrats, that roadblock is gone. California can just tax California to pay for universal healthcare for California. They have no reason to care what Iowa chooses to do.
> so it must also depend on the question of how other states manage to do the same work the California Government does (having schools, roads and police) with much lower rates of income and sales tax and a much less smaller tax base.
(1) They don't do the work the CA government does, which is why CA has a larger tax base.
(2) They have higher property taxes; California has the third highest median home price of the 50 states plus DC, yet the 10th lowest tax bill on median priced home of the same 51 jurisdictions.
Individual US states are pretty close to sovereign. Other than ability to tax and a few other things, the US federal government doesn't have much power.
> Why should federal taxes take priority over state? If the state is able to successfully tax its citizens and keep things closer to home—ultimately needing less support from the federal government—shouldn’t that be a good thing?
I'm not sure i'd say that they should take priority per se, but they shouldn't funge against each other, and the federal government was there first, in the case of income.
Under the old system, if a state introduced an income tax, that would proportionally decrease the federal government's revenue collection from their tax base. That's not a very good system. If a state wants to tax, they should tax, but that shouldn't then reduce the federal government's ability to collect taxes from those same people.
> Why, when I live in Kansas, should I have to pay higher taxes to subsidize welfare state residents?
In federal terms, Kansas is, in fact, heavily subsidized by the states hurt by the SALT change even before the change. The question is why those in California and similar states should have to subsidize their deliberately failed state even more for it's decision not to pay for its own citizens’ needs.
> Singling out California for not taking the unprecedented step of rolling out single-payer alone--which is a difficult proposition to say the least in a country that guarantees freedom of movement--is bizarre.
Given their political support of illegal immigration, I don't think it's bizarre at all.
They're among the richest, left-wing states in the country. Relative to other states, there's absolutely no shortage of political support or money. If they can't handle implementing their own utopian health care system, I don't know why any of us should trust that it can be done well at a federal level.
Each war and crisis has ratcheted up centralized power, typically by way of granting war time powers that never seem to completely fade away.
To help illustrate, money is an important proxy to government power, and the federal government spends roughly twice that of all state governments combined ($3.8T vs $2T).
> Have they tried, and did they fail?
The federal government has welfare programs that can be augmented by the states. California, for example, does this with food stamps (SNAP to CalFresh), health care for the poor (Medicaid to MediCal), and welfare for families (TANF to CalWORKS). To fund these, among other services (e.g., the University of California system), California has the highest state income tax in the nation (topping out at 13.3% for those earning over $1M).
I imagine that some states do not go much beyond the minimal federal programs.
For example, starting in 2014, Medicaid (health care for the poor) was expanded to cover those earning under 138% of the poverty line (a perfect example of the confusing way in which assistance is determined). Many states chose not to expand Medicaid, so they will not receive additional federal funding for the program. States that did, however, will.
On the health care front, some states have attempted to introduce universal health care. California successfully passed a bill, only to be vetoed by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Only two successful instances come to mind: Vermont and Massachusetts.
Vermont passed a single-payer universal health care system in 2011. Unfortunately, I am ignorant of details on its implementation.
Massachusetts has "RomneyCare," which has since been augmented to strongly resemble (in my eyes) the Swiss health care scheme. Insurance is mandatory, but coverage cannot be denied. Private insurance is subsidized by government. Health care costs are heavily regulated.
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