The pros and cons of cities and states taking initiative: Time for a New Federalism and not a New Confederacy.

Two interesting articles on federalism with different perspectives. On the one hand, we as progressives should applaud the initiative of cities, towns, and states that want to chart their own course when it comes to green energy and infrastructure. A recommended book on this blog, The Metropolitan Revolution advocates a bottom up approach to addressing our nations lingering issues. President Trump also believes in states taking the lead on some of these matters and in some cases bottom up is the best prescription because local leaders mostly have a better feel for what their citizens need. However, there is another perspective and that is what happens when the Governor of California (Jerry Brown) and former mayor of New York (Michael Bloomberg) decide to take matters into their own hands and openly negotiate with other countries like China. That kind of sounds like we are NOT the United States anymore. As mentioned in previous posts, the best solution to this is national leadership that sets national goals and some benchmarks on some needs like infrastructure, health care (which is already allowed through Obamacare), and Education but allows for state and local solutions to meet them according to regional concerns and facts on the ground. This New Federalism would be the best way to solve our countries problems and we would be the United States and not the New Confederacy.


http://www.governing.com/topics/transportation-infrastructure/gov-white-house-transportation-trump-infrastructure.html

http://www.governing.com/columns/potomac-chronicle/gov-fractured-federalism-states-federal-power.html