Radical Reform

If his piece at The Week Ryan Cooper wantgs basic reform of the federal government. He wants to:

1. Get rid of the Senate filibuster.
2. Radically change the way House members are elected.
3. Neuter the Senate.
4. Elect the president from the House.
5. Throw the entire Constitution in the garbage.

Over the two and a quarter centuries of the existence of the United States the federal government has transmogrified from an institution that maintained a military, negotiated with foreign governments, printed money, and took care of a handful of other tasks into one with a primary responsibility of redistributing income. Of the $3.9 trillion disbursed by the federal government, about half a trillion was spent on defense, a quarter trillion on interest on the debt, and most of the balance was transfer payments, mostly Social Security which goes to retirees and those on disability and Medicare and Medicaid which goes to health care providers.

The assumptions on which Mr. Cooper’s proposal rests are that there are pressing matters on which there is an urgent need for action, there is a consensus on what that action should be, and that the main factor preventing action is the structure of the federal government. I think that all of those assumptions are false. The illusion of urgency is an artifact, there is grave disagreement on how the matters before the federal government should be addressed, not just between Republicans and Democrats but between elected officials and the voting public, and the primary impediments to action are cowardice on the part of the Congress and that lack of consensus.

An even more activist government will not result in a more courageous Congress, it won’t force the legislators to do their jobs, and it won’t foster greater consensus but will only aggravate the problems we have. I have an even more radical proposal: go back to the structure of government as originally envisioned. Under that structure

1. The federal government’s primary responsibilities are the military and foreign affairs.
2. Most other activities of government are the responsibilities of the states.
3. The federal government should only intervene in the internal activities of the states when they’re in violation of the Constitution or of grave national concern. Slavery was such a national concern. The racism of Jim Crow that resulted in, for example, the Civil Rights Act of 1965, was another such national concern. Providing housing in downtown Chicago is not such a concern.

In such a context it makes sense for it to be difficult to get things done.

I think that Mr. Cooper should consider. The primary effecta of a centralized, efficient federal government with a consensus among legislators has been 25 years of war and an enormous increase in the concentration of wealth. How efficient does he want the federal government to become?