As the Republican Party struggles to redefine itself after two consecutive presidential election defeats, a group of scholars is pressing the conservative movement to rethink how it thinks about federalism.
The usual refrain among Republicans is that Congress should always be looking to “return power to the states.” But as George Mason University law professor Michael Greve explains in his book, The Upside-Down Constitution, the manner in which the federal government empowers states matters.
Through “competitive federalism,” states are free to tax and regulate their own citizens as they see fit, and citizens and businesses can then move between the states. This is Greve’s Constitutional ideal.
But under “cartel federalism,” which is what most of our federalist system has degenerated into, the federal government taxes everyone and then gives grants to states to perform services as it sees fit. Greve explains just one problem with cartel federalism:
But it is not just blue states like Illinois that are cartel federalism bad actors. Consider this story from The Washington Post:
A decade ago, only about half of eligible Americans chose to sign up for food stamps. Now that number is 75 percent.
Rhode Island hosts SNAP-themed bingo games for the elderly. Alabama hands out fliers that read: “Be a patriot. Bring your food stamp money home.”
“Be a patriot. Bring your food stamp money home.” Those two sentences epitomize everything that is bad about cartel federalism.
