What is the Proper Role of Federal, State and Local Governments

What is the proper role of federal, state and local governments?  There was a time when Americans knew.  Now, thanks to Progressives, those lines have been blurred.  I posted this a couple of years ago.  Read to the end, when Tocqueville describes what happens to people who do not understand federalism.

Alexis de Tocqueville when traveling the United State in the early 1800’s wrote about Americans and their familiarity with the role of federal, state and local governments. He also wrote about the fate of countries who tried to replicate our style of government without understanding it.

Here is an excerpt from his Democracy in America:

Once the general theory is well understood, the difficulties of applying it remain; these are countless because the sovereignty of the Union is so entwined in that of the states that it is impossible at first glance to see its limits. Everything in such a government is arbitrary and contrived and it can only suit a nation long accustomed to self-government and where political science reaches right down to the lowest rungs of society. Nothing has made me admire the good sense and practical intelligence of the Americans more than the way they evade the countless difficulties which derive from their federal constitution. I have scarcely ever encountered a single man of the common people in America who did not perceive with surprising ease the obligations entailed in the laws of Congress and those which owe their beginnings to the laws of his own state, nor who could not separate the matters belonging to the general prerogatives of the Union from those regulated by his local legislature and who could not point to where the competence of the federal courts begins and the limitation of the state tribunals ends.


Do the above describe today’s average American? I don’t think so. Just look at the courts of today. The federal judiciary is usurping the powers of the state tribunals. The federal government is dictating to the states and its citizens what it can and can’t do. Is this what our founding fathers envisioned?


Tocqueville further states what happens to those nations who replicate, but don’t follow the SPIRIT of our Constitution as understood by our founding fathers:


The Constitution of the United States is akin to those fine creations of human endeavor which crown their inventors with renown and wealth but remain sterile in others hands.

Contemporary Mexico has illustrated this very thing.

The Mexicans, aiming for a federal system, took the federal constitution of their neighbors, the Anglo-Americans, as their model and copied it almost exactly. But although they transported the letter of the law, they failed to transfer at the same time the spirit which gave it life. As a result, they became tangled endlessly in the machinery of the double system of government. The sovereignty of the states and Union entered into a collision course as they exceeded the sphere of influence assigned to them by the constitution. Even today Mexico veers constantly from anarchy to military despotism and back again.

H/T: Video NC Renegade

Source: http://costonscomplaint.blogspot.com/2010/07/can-united-states-become-another-mexico.html

Obamacare Hits Local and State Governments

Obamacare isn't just assaulting the private sector; it’s also effecting local and state governments.  This man-made disaster is smacking everyone across the face.  Brietbart.com reported the following:

The costs of Obamacare are not just hitting businesses this year--they are also hitting the government, and public employees as well. Virginia, for example, is about to limit part-time employees to 29 hours per week in order to avoid triggering Obamacare’s requirement that employers provide health insurance to those working 30 hours per week or more. The state cannot afford the $110 million annual cost of insurance.

Elsewhere, public institutions are taking similar steps to limit part-time work. In Ohio, Youngstown State University recently announced a 29-hour-per-week part-time limit, and placed employees on notice that they would be fired if they worked more than the maximum. Other public universities are doing the same across the nation, just as their private-sector counterparts are limiting part-time hours to avoid the Obamacare rule.

In addition to limiting part-time hours, many institutions--public and private--are moving employees from full-time to part-time status to avoid Obamacare requirements. Doing so means facing the ire of left-wing institutions such as John Podesta’s Think Progress, which recently castigated a Wendy’s franchise for cutting employees’ hours. Yet there is little most businesses can do--they are merely responding to incentives written into law.

 Wow!  And this is just the beginning.

Source:  http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2013/02/10/Now-States-Cutting-Employee-Hours-to-Avoid-Obamacare-Costs

Illinois State Rep. Angered After Being Pelosi'd

Here’s some passion for you. Illinois State Rep. Mike Bost went ballistic on the House floor. Apparently, a committee passed a pension bill earlier that day, and then the majority pulled a Nancy Pelosi. They forced a vote before anyone could read it.

“Total power in one person’s hands – not the American way!” Bost began.

“These damn bills that come out here all the damn time, come out here at the last second!” Bost added as he threw papers. “I’ve got to figure out how to vote for my people!”

“You should be ashamed of yourselves! I’m sick of it!” he went on. “Every year! We give power to one person! It was not made that way in the Constitution! He was around when it was written! Now we give him – we’ve passed rules that stop each one of us! Enough! I feel like somebody trying to be released from Egypt! Let my people go!”

Indeed, Rep. Mike Bost. Indeed.


Source: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/illinois-state-rep-goes-ballistic-throws-papers-flails-and-screams-over-vote-on-pension-bill/

Entitlement Class Wins Another Round

Grants issued by federal and state governments are not loans, but monies given to businesses and organizations to perform a specific task. And as you can expect, whenever there is “free money” to be had, there will be a cloud of vultures flying around looking for easy pickings.

So who is to ensure that these vultures are meeting their contractual obligations? Well, if you’re in North Carolina it’s the Office of State Budget and Management. But according to a Civitas Institute report, this agency is having a hard time holding these grantees accountable:

Funding for over 1,000 recipients of North Carolina state grants has been suspended, repeatedly in many cases, mainly for not filing required annual reports of how the money was spent, but many of them still received additional grants. By the time many of the grants were suspended, however, the funds had already been spent with no accounting for how the money was used.

What is even more disturbing is that these vultures know that the state of North Carolina can’t do anything about their non-compliance. By law, the federal government mandates that the states must pay these bandits:

About half of the 1,000 suspended grants were for child and adult nutrition programs administered by the state Division of Public Health. Most of those grant recipients had funding suspended over the course of three to four grants in consecutive years, but they continued to receive the grant funds anyway. Those recipients knew they wouldn’t lose their money even if they didn’t comply with reporting rules. The state couldn’t actually withhold those funds because of federal law. Those food programs were paid for with federal tax dollars that the Division of Public Health simply administered. Under federal law even if a grantee receiving federal funds doesn’t comply with state reporting rules the state still has to continue the funding.

And the entitlement class wins another round.

Source: http://www.nccivitas.org/2011/analysis-of-state-grant-programs-shows-need-for-changes-in-state-and-federal-law/

States Are "FED" Up

When I say that the states are fed up, I mean just that. For years, they have been kicked around and abused by our feudal lords and masters in Washington D.C... Federal mandates and judicial tyranny have eviscerated the 10th amendment. Now, the states are fighting back:


COLUMBIA, SC (AP) - South Carolina lawmakers have approved a measure meant to eventually allow states to repeal federal law.


But the process to get there would be complicated and long.


House Republicans pushed through the so-called "repeal amendment" by a 72-44 vote on Wednesday. Democrats argued the measure was a waste of time.


The legislation calls for a Constitutional Convention to propose an amendment allowing states to repeal a federal law. That would depend on two-thirds of state legislatures approving a resolution to do so.


House Speaker Bobby Harrell says it's a way for states to regain sovereignty.


Democratic Rep. Walt McLeod notes there hasn't been a Constitutional Convention since 1787, and an agenda for one couldn't be set in advance. Two-thirds of states must request to have one.



I do not trust a Constitutional Convention. When the delegates gathered in Philadelphia in 1787, it was to tweak the Articles of Confederation. They came out with a whole new paradigm. Very few expected that to happen.

Today’s leaders do not have the same integrity, foresight, or knowledge of history as our founding fathers. I don’t trust a damn one of them. If a Constitutional Convention were to happen, you can expect an abortion just like that of the European Union.

If we really want to limit the powers of the federal government, we must repeal the 17th, 14th, and 16th Amendments. Fooling around with a Constitutional Convention is courting disaster.

Source: http://www.wistv.com/Global/story.asp?S=14042792


H/T: Carolina Politics Online

States Confront Public Employee Unions

States have record budget deficits and one of the contributing factors is the bloated pensions, health care, and salaries of public employees. Ohio, Wisconsin, and Kentucky have introduced legislation to limit the bargaining power of unions and to realign their wages and benefits with that of the private sector.

Ohio’s Senate Republicans are proposing the following:

Proposals in the bill:


State workers


• Eliminates collective bargaining for state workers, including higher education employees.


• Requires the Department of Administrative Services to develop a merit-based system of pay.


Local workers


• Removes the requirement that deadlocked safety forces go to binding arbitration, instead extending the prior union contract for one year.


• Requires mediators to consider wages of employees who are not members of the union and does not allow them to consider future tax increases as part of an entity's ability to pay.


• Allows employers to hire permanent replacement workers during a strike.


• Removes health insurance from collective bargaining. Management will pick insurance policies, and employees must cover at least 20 percent of the cost.


• No longer requires that once a subject is included in a contract that it becomes a mandatory subject of future bargaining.


• Defines an "impasse" as a lack of agreement after 90 days. After that point, it requires each side to make public its last, best offer.


• Prohibits public employers from picking up extra employee pension contributions.


• Eliminates from state law automatic pay increases for experience and education.


• Eliminates from state law leave policies and automatic 15 sick days for teachers.


• Prohibits school districts from bargaining away certain management powers, such as the ability to deploy teachers to certain buildings.


• No longer makes longevity a deciding factor when management is deciding to make layoffs.


• Requires a public employer to publish on its website any changes in the union contract that impacts compensation of workers, including wages, length of service payments, and insurance coverage.


• Requires the employer and the State Employment Relations Board to publish the parties' offers on their websites before and after fact-finding is complete.


• Allows schools or local governments in fiscal emergency to terminate or modify a collective bargaining agreement

SEIU and other union thugs crowded the statehouse of Ohio demanding a no vote. Wisconsin’s Governor is forecasting something else more ominous. He has ordered the National Guard to be on standby.

Collective bargaining is becoming collective thuggery.

Source: http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2011/02/09/senate-republicans-negotiate-limiting-unions-power.html

http://www.businessinsider.com/kentuck-senate-votes-to-end-guaranteed-pensions-2011-2

http://www.businessinsider.com/national-guard-is-prepared-for-state-worker-unrest-in-wisconsin-after-gov-unveils-emergency-budget-plan-2011-2#ixzz1DwnMW8Ca