Maastricht Treaty revisions needed?

[kandrathe]

However, I do fail to see the difference you claim. Economies of scale, better utilization of resources, uniformity of 'product', elimination of redundant efforts. All those and more apply to any consolidation. Indeed, the only difference I see is that one agrees with your point of view and the other doesn't. One reduces the federal government, the other increases it. However, the increase in the federal government should be more than offset by the reduction in the state, county, district, and city levels. Unlike you, I'm more interested in reducing the total size of government, not just the federal.

Programs can be sized and tailored to fit the needs of the locality. A simple example would be that the department of agriculture in Arizona would be intimately familiar with water resources, where one in Maine might have more insight on cranberries. I would certainly encourage cooperation, and resource sharing where possible across states, but that hardly needs a federal agency to manage it, nor billions per year of spending. More importantly is that they already exist within the 50 states, for this very reason of specialty, so we have the 50 state sized agencies plus the humongous federal agency. This is not consolidation, it is eliminating the superfluous one grand papa agency that becomes a temptation for Congress to abuse for their benefit.

Multiply this same problem across the spectrum of things that the States do already, that the Federal government does not need to do. In essence, the Federal agency just becomes the funnel that redistributes tax money back to the States agencies. No state is going to eliminate its government, and just let the Feds run everything, nor would the Feds be able to run any States business. In essence, there is no need for a Federal department of Education, Transportation, Agriculture, or Health and Human Services. These are domestic things that we do within the States, and even within Counties, and due to pandering for votes, over time the Feds have spawned more and more of these oversight agencies, that have been cluttered up with programs which are a way to justify separating fools from their money.