Federal v. State Rights
"But ambitious encroachments of the federal government, on the authority of the State governments, would not excite the opposition of a single State, or of a few States only. They would be signals of general alarm... But what degree of madness could ever drive the federal government to such an extremity."
-- James Madison (Federalist No. 46, 29 January 1788)
When the founding fathers concived of this country, they intended for a weak central govenment, one that only did very specific tasks and nothing else. It was to provide protection for the country, deal with other countries in general, settle disputes between the states, and make sure the states traded fairly with each other. That's it! Today the federal government owns much of the property in some of the states and employs about 3 million people just to keep up with all the laws and regulations that it has created.
For a long time individual regulatory agencies, like the EPA had the ability to make up, declare, rules as they saw fit. "From such and such date, no car my emit more than this much CO2", for example. In 1996 Congress finally realised that rulemaking was getting out of hand and passed a law that from then on, rulemaking must go through the full legislative process. That was a great first step, but I think the next should be that the rules that have been made before 1996 must each be submitted through that same process or be voided in the next 5 years. Well, personally, I'd like to see a branch of the govenrment that does nothing but void or repeal laws. Think of it as an oposite house of representatives. 1/3 vote minimum to void a law, 1/2 minimum to repeal it. If a third of the country can't agree that a law is worth keeping it needs to be done on the state or local level or not at all.
-- James Madison (Federalist No. 46, 29 January 1788)
When the founding fathers concived of this country, they intended for a weak central govenment, one that only did very specific tasks and nothing else. It was to provide protection for the country, deal with other countries in general, settle disputes between the states, and make sure the states traded fairly with each other. That's it! Today the federal government owns much of the property in some of the states and employs about 3 million people just to keep up with all the laws and regulations that it has created.
For a long time individual regulatory agencies, like the EPA had the ability to make up, declare, rules as they saw fit. "From such and such date, no car my emit more than this much CO2", for example. In 1996 Congress finally realised that rulemaking was getting out of hand and passed a law that from then on, rulemaking must go through the full legislative process. That was a great first step, but I think the next should be that the rules that have been made before 1996 must each be submitted through that same process or be voided in the next 5 years. Well, personally, I'd like to see a branch of the govenrment that does nothing but void or repeal laws. Think of it as an oposite house of representatives. 1/3 vote minimum to void a law, 1/2 minimum to repeal it. If a third of the country can't agree that a law is worth keeping it needs to be done on the state or local level or not at all.