By Stephen Smoot
The politically weaponized federal government shut down has already accomplished the Election Day goals of its architects.
Virginia and New York City both saw “pain point” elections. Republican efforts to move the pain of Biden’s open borders to the major cities led to the New York City results. They did not vote for the Islamo Marxist-Leninist because of his odious support for Communism or his embrace of perverted anti Jewish Islam. They voted for an immigrant because immigrants and their left-liberal professional class fellow travelers wanted an immigrant.
Virginia went for the shrieking former CIA employee (what would the Church Commission think?) over the kindly black grandmother because President Donald Trump has rightfully attacked the costly size and scope of the federal government. He is also dismantling their corrupt grant funding to political campaign donation gravy train.
Even if they are byproducts of good policy, pain points motivate voters more than social issues.
The pain point in Northern Virginia is somewhat related to the lesson everyone should be learning. The shutdown has laid bare a serious flaw in the American system that the Founding Fathers labored hard to prevent, putting all of the nation’s eggs into the worst possible basket, that of the federal government.
Excessive national dependence on the federal government for almost everything is the 180 degree opposite outcome from what the Founding Fathers envisioned. Our lack of wisdom in ignoring theirs has led to political, budgetary, and social crises that continue to rip at the fabric of American society.
In so many areas, thankfully not yet West Virginia, “reds” and “blues” do not even socialize, much less work together for common solutions.
James Madison came to the Constitutional Convention with a plan of government already mostly envisioned and articulated. It was based on a notion of balance derived from the wisdom of Aristotle.
The world’s first political scientist, Aristotle wrote on politics based on his observations of three general forms of government. To him, all started positive and degenerated into negative. In each case, this happens when the drive for good government fades and that for power and position take its place.
Monarchy, rule of one, became authoritarian tyranny. Aristocracy, rule by the best, becomes oligarchy, rule by the powerfully corrupt.
Polity, rule by the people, becomes what Aristotle called “democracy.” To him, democracy referred to a situation where voting blocs take over in a majority rule electoral system and use that mandate to impose on the people rather than consult with them. Aristotle was likely thinking of Athens, the most perfect majority rule democracy ever created, and how its majority supported the murder of Socrates for having controversial opinions.
Not unlike the attorney general elect of Virginia and his media-reported fantasies of wiping out the children of his political opponents.
Britain saw the wisdom of balance and established it, until very recently, in their own system. Monarch, aristocracy, and commons each had a voice in government. The balance created gave the British Empire stable government while nations around her struggled with modern political evolution.
Madison fashioned a balance from the federal government, state governments, and the people. Each had a voice in the system, but each also had fairly equal responsibilities in building society and solving its problems.
State governments evolved into experiments in democracy, each innovating where it needed and following the best ideas of the rest. The people responded to the call as well. Churches and their congregations worked to meet social needs. They established schools, hospitals, and happily engaged in charity well before that was a tax deduction.
Secular organizations arose to also fill the wide gaps between government efforts. Rotary, Ruritan, Lions, and other service clubs formed. The Grange, then the American Farm Bureau, helped and advocated for agriculture. Labor unions formed to meet the needs of workers in both assistance and marshaling their voice against some of the more harmful practices of industry early on.
The Grand Army of the Republic, then the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars later, took care of veterans and gave them a voice on a larger stage.
In the early 20th century, the Progressive Era saw centralization, standardization, and scientific approaches to social problem solving as more desirable than the patchwork quilt of service organizations, churches, and government from township to DC. Their passage of the Income Tax Amendment in 1913 gave them fuel to drive efforts to extend the federal government’s efforts into more fields of endeavor.
Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and subsequent developments moved more and more into the aegis of federal government.
In the last 25 years, this has correlated with the decline of membership and participation in churches and service clubs. At one point in US history, they organized and worked to help because no one else could or would.
Now, federal largesse through grant funds has led to the creation of a distinct class of local officials, consultants, and non profits that do the same work, but for much more money. What a service club did with volunteers and sweat equity, federal grants now pour tens or hundreds of thousands into the same efforts.
Early this year, federal budget cuts threatened the popular history education and entertainment program “History Alive.” Re-enactors portray historical figures in presentations at libraries and elsewhere.
It’s a nice program that does a lot of good, but federal money should be nowhere near something like this when the United States has a $37 trillion debt. Honestly, the expectation of federal funding for programs like History Alive have helped to create this dangerous situation. There’s no reason why History Alive could not take place through local efforts, volunteers, and a shoestring budget.
Yet the path of least resistance lies in dependency on bites from the federal budget to fund pretty much anything that a state or local government needs (which is fine to an extent) or wants (not fine at all because few people can discern a need from a want when it comes to their own program.)
The shutdown’s ripple effects now have moved to delays in food stamps, the need to shutdown some air traffic due to federal funding of that, and the suspension of Medicaid and Medicare payments to ambulance services.
Half the country blames the Democrats. Half the country blames the Republicans. Blame should go to both parties who allowed Leviathan to grow unchecked until at this point, when the federal government falters it creates crises in a broad array of areas.
The solution will not likely happen because it asks for massive changes and sacrifices, but here goes.
The federal government should have its functions pared back to essential fields (by statute or Constitutional amendment if necessary), such as national security, diplomacy, limited federal law enforcement, administration of federal lands, and a few other fields.
State and local government needs to do much of the heavy lifting of administration of domestic government, including education, health care policy, environmental policy, and a number of other areas. They are in the best position to have that birds-eye view of a problem, yet be able to find a solution that fits its needs, as opposed to a federal solution that only meets DC’s.
States would also need their semi-sovereign status restored so that, in domestic terms anyway, they function more like mini nations. That may sound odd, but it was the original plan and it worked very well for a long time.
The people, however, need to be reminded that they cannot simply sit back and wait for any level of government to take care of the rest of their problems. We have grown spoiled, seeing the federal government as parents and ourselves as incapable children without their guidance and support.
Through churches, the private sector, service clubs, and other organizations, much can be done because in the past, that is how it got done.
In Shinnston, for example, the city has little to do with the annual Veterans Day Parade except permitting and encouragement. The Lions Club organizes the parade, recruits grand marshals, puts up flags. Afterward, American Legion Post 31 holds a community lunch to honor and celebrate those who sacrificed for their country.
At one point in America, in the not-too-distant-past, this is how things got done. Not through grant applications and ridiculous amounts of federal funding, not through having local government do all the work, but through citizens gathering and determining their own priorities on how to get things accomplished.
Additionally, the federal government would have to be kept on a budgetary diet. Federal taxes would drop a great deal, but state revenues would have to rise considerably through taxation at that level. Another major change would be rolling back regulatory standards imposed that do little to improve safety or quality, but create unfunded costs that state and local governments have to bear.
Regulatory costs imposed by the federal government have added unnecessary burdens to everything from health care and emergency response to road construction.
In areas where interstate cooperation would be appropriate, compacts such as the Chesapeake Bay Program could pool efforts and funds, but without interference or funding from the federal side.
Most importantly, mixed government with divided responsibilities diffuses the political pushback when things do not go right, as they will do. Currently, like a time limited Roman Emperor, all of the credit or blame falls on the individual at the top, making the person who occupies that spot of far too much importance to the lives of almost everyone.
The president was supposed to be an administrator, not holder of strings of power, certainly not a national “leader.” The chief executive was supposed to follow the people, not lead them. But due to the failure to maintain the balance, we have the system we have.
And it’s clearly not working as well as it did before we handed the federal government so much money and so much control.
But how do we get away from the unworkable and bring back the nearly ideal?