WhatFinger


The federal government is granted only eighteen specific powers in the U.S. Constitution

The Beauty of State Competition



I’ve been thinking about the concept of state vs. federal government power this week. I have gained a new appreciation for this concept of late. I’m reading a book by Judge Andrew Napolitano titled, The Constitution in Exile. Napolitano notes that the federal government is granted only eighteen specific powers in the U.S. Constitution. These include such things as imposing taxes, borrowing money, and establishing a post office.

Support Canada Free Press


The remaining powers of government are granted to the states and to the citizens of those states. This concept of limited, enumerated powers provided a strong check on the central government, but it did something else I hadn’t thought much about. It also allowed the states the power to compete with each other, much like private businesses compete—and this is a very good thing. Let me explain. Those eighteen specific powers granted to the federal government do not include the authority to provide universal health care to all Americans. We can only hope that the Supreme Court will acknowledge this once Obamacare is argued before it. However, there is no Constitutional block on individual states experimenting with this idea. So let’s look at two sample states—Massachusetts and Virginia—and let’s assume that for the most part these two states are fairly similar. Let’s say that one day the government of Massachusetts decides to provide universal health care to its citizens, and Virginia does not. Let’s further say that the Massachusetts plan works brilliantly. All residents get free health care, costs remain low, businesses and consumers save money, and everybody’s happy. In Virginia, by contrast, thousands of residents are without insurance, health care costs continue to skyrocket, and businesses and individuals are very unhappy. In this scenario, what can we expect to happen? By following basic economic principles, we can know exactly what will happen. First, businesses and individuals will begin to move from Virginia with its lousy, expensive health care system to Massachusetts with its wonderful socialized system. Before long, Virginia, tired of losing businesses and residents to Massachusetts, will probably adopt the same plan as Massachusetts or one very similar to it. On the other hand, let’s say that the Massachusetts plan is a flop, resulting in higher costs, a huge government bureaucracy, lousy care, and even higher taxes, while Virginia, which was smart enough to keep its government out of the heath care business, remains a vibrant, relatively low-tax state with great health care. In this scenario, we would expect businesses and individuals to begin to move south. And thus we see the beauty of state competition. By keeping federal powers limited, and thus providing the individual states with the ability to experiment with their own systems of laws, taxes, and services, the Founding Fathers provided a wonderful way for the states to compete with one another for businesses and residents. Those states that find the best system will become more attractive and will draw others to them—and they also inspire other states to do the same. You might be thinking that this sounds good, but it doesn’t really happen. I mean, moving from one state to another is a big deal, right? Most people get settled in one place and stay there forever, don’t they? Not anymore. Americans are more mobile than ever before, and they do take things like tax rates and regulations into account when they move. Before my recent move to Canada, the last time I moved was in 2004. I had two job offers: one in Connecticut and one in Virginia. The Connecticut job paid more, and I preferred the climate (I’m a cold weather boy to the bone—thus my recent move to Canada) to that of Virginia. But Connecticut is also a very liberal state with extremely high taxes and regulations. In the end, I chose Virginia for these very reasons. A recent article right here in the Canada Free Press bears this out. Note this line from the May 17 article, African Americans Flee Failed Liberal Northern Cities for the Conservative South, by Fred Dardick: “One of the most interesting results from the 2010 census, little discussed by the media, was the large scale movement of African Americans over the past 10 years from Democrat controlled cities in the northern United States including Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, and New York to the more conservative south... African American families are abandoning the failed liberal communities in which they have lived for decades.” My point is this: competition is always a good thing. It makes people try harder, work smarter, be more productive. In the business world, competition brings us better products at lower prices. In the public sector, it brings more effective government. So we should always strive to have the most government decisions being made at the level most open to competition—and that means holding the federal government to those eighteen enumerated powers, and leaving the rest to the states and the individuals.


View Comments

Mike Jensen -- Bio and Archives

Mike Jensen is a freelance writer living in Colorado.  He received his M.A. in Professional Writing from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, where he wrote his first book, Alaska’s Wilderness Highway.  He has since published Skier’s Guide to Utah along with humor, travel, and political articles for various magazines and newspapers.  He is married with five sons, and spends his free time at a remote cabin in the Colorado Rockies.


Sponsored