You Krazee Ameh'cunsFollow

You can't have it both ways, Gbaji...either states and local governments are carry greater responsibility AND greater autonomy AND the lion's share of tax revenue, or their autonomy is limited by the federal government, which then consequently assumes more responsibility and collects the larger portion of tax revenue.

The Civil War established that there was a distinct limit on state autonomy and that federal laws overrode state laws. Reconstruction established that the federal government was responsible for re-implementing order and infrastructure in the areas devastated by the war (chiefly because they didn't trust local governments to do so without another uprising.) This policy has been re-emphasized time and again throughout the last 150 years, such as in the recent Supreme Court ruling that state medical marijuana laws do not trump federal anti-drug laws.

You can't say that local governments carry all the responsibility for seeing to the security of their own region, then deny them the autonomy to make the rules that oversee that region and continue taxing its citizens at the same rate as before, leaving them unable to shoulder the increased local tax burden that would finance such projects; it doesn't work that way. And it's patently clear that conservatives are NOT willing to relinquish authority at the state level--that has been made abundantly clear every time the federal government trumps local laws on everything from gay marriage to gun control. Well, if they want the power centralized at the federal government, then so must the responsibility be.

The federal government has collected taxes from the people of that region year after year, and had a responsibility to use some of that money in a manner that would benefit those people it came from by seeing to their safety in the event of a disaster that was foreseen years ago. That is, after all, what taxation is for; the people give their money to the government so that the government can implement projects that benefit the people. The federal government failed to discharge that responsibility. End of story.

Edited to please Bhodi

Edited, Fri Sep 2 21:56:44 2005 by Ambrya

Thank you, Bhodi. Like this?



Edited, Fri Sep 2 21:52:02 2005 by Ambrya

Lol...not sure how to interpret being called "The Skirt with the opinions" but I'll assume it's a good thing unless otherwise indicated.

Yeah. It's a "slippery slope" situation, and the Civil War certainly is the start. I picked FDR because while the Civil War and reconstruction mostly restricted itself to military/defense issues, the New Deal is probably the most notable federalization of ongoing general domestic issues not relating specifically to defense of nation. Since we're talking about a funding program to maintain a local system of levees and pumping stations, that's pretty far out from federalizing the military to maintain control over a group of separatist states, and a whole lot closer to the sort of domestic programs that FDR implemented.

Wouldn't you agree?



I'm not aware of any federal law that prohibits a state or municipalities from levying it's own taxes to pay for local issues. What do you think those bond issues are about that come up every year during election time? A lot of people rutinely vote those down though, when IMO, those are some of the best expenditures of tax money you'll see in government.




You're comparing apples to oranges. Conservatives believe in "small government". That's not about the physical size, but the scope. Conservatives believe that there is a short list of things that federal government should be responsible. That's national defense (military), foreign relations (military again, trade deals, tarrifs, etc), and interstate relations (things like interstate highways, managing trade between states, managing legal issues between states, etc).

It is not hypocritical or inconsistent at all for a conservative to say that the US government should have a strong control over laws that affect all 50 states (marriage for example, but any of a number of regulatory/standards systems work here), or that we should focus on military and foreign spending, but at the same time suggest that local governments deal with local domestic issues. It only seems that way to those who've decided that the federal government must also be directly responsible for education, civic construction, saftey and security, employment, and a host of other local domestic social issues.

Um... And on the issue of gun control, you're just totally backwards. It's the Liberals who are pushing for federal level laws against guns. The conservatives do take action at the federal level, but only to block that of the liberals. Ask any member of the NRA, and he'll tell you that each state and/or city should be allowed to pass their own gun control laws as they wish.

Heck. Conservatives wouldn't care about the federal status of marriage except that federal law already requires that a marriage in one state must be recognized in all others. We'd be pefectly ok with any state allowing gay marriage in their state if we could choose not to recognize it in ours.


The difference isn't about whether the federal government is "strong" or "weak", but in what things it has power over. Conservatives believe that social issues and domestic work projects are best handled at the most local level possible. If NO can pay for and maintain its levees, then that's where it should be managed. And NO should certainly have the right to apply taxes and tarrifs as it feels fit in order to pay for that. That may not be the way things are right now, but most conservatives will argue that that's the way it *should* be.




But that's exactly the thinking that's flawed and comes about only when you start divvying federal monies up among different localities. See. If federal money only goes to the military, or dealing with foreign powers, or trade issues across the country, then no one argues over whether their tax dollars are being spent "fairly" in their state versus someone else's. It's only when a budget has to be draw up deciding whether a Water Purification system in CA gets funding, or a Bridge in Washington, that we run into problems.


Yes. The citizens of NO paid taxes, just like I did. However, did they pay *more* then I did? How much did they get in federal funds in relation to how much I did and in relation to how much I paid? Is that more or less? You don't know? Well, neither do I!

The inherent problem with federal level taxes reapportioned to fix local problems is that it's harder to tax the nation as a whole when not everyone in the nation is getting the same benefit from those taxes, nor do they know what they are getting for their tax dollars. So if NO has an additional need for tax money to fix it's levee's, it's going to be pretty darn difficult increasing taxes nationwide to pay for it. But if the city of NO decides to raise that money locally, they can pass those bond issue and tarrifs and whatnot pretty easily because the people voting on it *know* where the money is going to go.


I'm not arguing that this is the magic pill that would solve all problems. I am saying that somewhere along the way, we've decided that we should put more weight into a federal solution to local domestic problems, and a side effect of that is that we often don't even try to solve those problems ourselves.

Edited, Fri Sep 2 22:37:07 2005 by gbaji