I'll take a crack at this. States formed the Federal Government through the Articles of Confederation and later the Constitution. In that there was intended to be a careful delineation of authority each level of government had to exercise. Those that by their nature had to be done by a national level government was delegated to the feds while all others were left to the states. States created the feds to protect the states, not lord over them. It's really unique in governance and frankly one of the things IMHO that makes this country special. The states have the sovereign authority to exercise any power typical of any country except those delegated to the feds within the Constitution. States are special. As far as states versus local governments is concerned the reality is that in most states local governments such as county or city are creatures of the state and are thus directly subordinate to the state. There is no coequal sovereignty. Lower levels of government exist at the behest of the state and relieve the state government from dealing with extremely local issues. Some of the New England states are exceptions to that general rule where the relationship between the state and city or county is more like what is intended between the state and the feds. Now WRT the specific issue of a state having a minimum wage. My position is feds butt out! It's not your issue. I'm of course assuming here the state constitution authorizes the state government to legislate on the matter. Oops, I misread the article. This was Iowa GOP (not fed) prohibiting local government from having a different minimum wage from what the state set. Again it depends on the state Constitution. If the authority has been delegated to the state then the state has every right to determine one minimum wage for the state and prohibit local governments from changing it provided the lower levels are creatures of the state. Note I'm not making any argument on whether doing it is good or bad, only commenting on a state's authority to do so. An analogous relationship between the state of Iowa and the city of Des Moines would be the Federal Government with the city government of Washington DC. The latter was created to relieve the feds of matters of running the city.
It seems that basically that says states are special because states are special. It is not a logical argument in terms of efficiency or principle but simply one of historical consequence. In other words, there is nothing special about states other than that they existed before the US. Note that I am not making a legal or historical argument, only that there is no actual logical or principled argument presented for why the specific state level delineation is the best one.
States are special because they are the sovereign governmental entities no different from various nations in the world. The states then banded together to form the national level government so we have the unique dual sovereign system of governance; state and national. Thus there is historical and legal basis. In and of itself that is not a logical argument for the basis granted. That's just the way it was. Now WRT logical basis, given the size and scope of the country as it started and was envisioned to be, having lowers levels of government to take care of most aspects that didn't need to be dealt with at a national level was not only logical, but is necessary for good and efficient (well as efficient as government can be) governance in a large country. If you read the Federalist Papers and works of the day our Founders wrote about the grandeur of the Federal Government in not being bogged down in local affairs that a state would do. Let the national government take care of things that by their nature you need a national level government to do. Let the states and local governments take care of the other things that don't need national attention. Address and solve your issues at the lowest level possible. When you get down to it, whether you call us a republic or a democracy, that is what self-governance is all about. Size and scope of the country is the determining factor in whether you need a state level government between the national and local.
pretty sure most other modernized countries have a similar regional level power structure between city and national i may just be misinterpreting why they have various regions, but germany is still divided in a sense along old HRE state lines. japan has multiple prefectures, mostly i think based on big cities. canada has provinces. the uk is comprised of 3 main countries, though england gets all the buzz because they were the unifying force (and i'd imagine there're some number of provinces per country) like that. if we're unique in anything there, it's in how many regional-level states we have. i don't think any of my examples go above 20 provinces (which i'd think is a stretch, but i cbf to look it up rn), whereas we have 50 states and a few territories. probably because they divvied theirs up more along population-level, whereas our state populations vary a ton state to state
Except none of this explains why STATES are super important and is "efficient" but the same isn't said about counties or districts or cities (for example, in the case of the Iowa situation). There's no logical basis for why it's states, and not districts, or districts and cities, or some smaller sub-set of substates regions, or multiple state regions. You can't just claim "states are efficient because the founding fathers said so" without making a concrete argument as to why doing things on the state level is more efficient than all the other potential theoretical delineations if that's what I am asking about in the first place. I mean, heck, states vary significantly in size, scope, demographics and regions between states. Some states are large in size, but small in population, others are small but large in population. Some states have diverse populations, others are fairly homogenous. Some states concentrate population in major cities, others are more rural. How can it be that "states" are ALWAYS the most efficient way to deal with government? And why doesn't the argument that districts are more local than states not give us the idea that districts are more efficient than states? None of this is ever answered when I ask this question, it's all just "because states are special."
obviously you have the upper level het reik, or lets call it the realm because empire is a bit grandstandy and reich is more german and ... eh... then you have the provinces. below those are the municipalities. and on a different level there are the waterboards, not torturers, but responsible for dykes and waterquality and stuff within their region. Literally the term means "Dike count", those are all the layers.
I think I covered some of this, but I'll try again. In the US it's STATES because that's what the original 13 were when they formed the national government. For governance it really doesn't matter what the sub-divisions are called. They're provinces in Canada and Mexico for example. Your other primary issue/question goes to the question of not only roles of government, but what level of government is best suited to exercise which roles. Just because something should and needs to be addressed by government, that doesn't mean it should be done by the ***national*** level government. Each issue to be dealt with by government needs to be addressed by the correct level of government. That is critical to good governance. You don't want your national government mucking about in local affairs anymore than you'd want cities making national policy. I'll try to be brief. Obviously, the national level better focus on things like foreign policy, national defense, immigration, units of measure and other things listed in the constitution that really need to be done by a national level government. No one else is really suited to do them. The cities/counties better focus on things like water, sewer, fire, parks, trash, schools, snow removal and things that are really local in nature. In between you have states or whatever you want to call them that focus more on transport infrastructure, criminal justice system, the societal safety net (that can be augmented by cities) for example. Things that don't need to be at the national level, but are too large in scope for a city or county. For optimal efficiency there should be as little concurrent jurisdiction as possible. I think Hamilton described in the Federalist Papers that the only concurrent jurisdiction between the states and the feds was taxation. Which level of government is best to address minimum wage? For a nation as large as the US I'm satisfied it's not the national level. If you're nation is the size of Belgium then you can probably do OK combining the national with the state level. Now if your nation is the size of the US, it's too big and diverse to govern effectively and efficiently if the national government does everything a state would do in addition to the national issues. Yes our states do vary greatly in size and scope and some can certainly be divided. I'm not getting into that. People will argue the ideal size of a state (province whatever; don't get hung up on the name) until the cows come home. I'm satisfied the ideal is certainly smaller than the size of the original 13 states combined. If this didn't clarify some things for you I don't know what I can do.
I just thought of what I hope is a good summary of my various posts including the one above. Size and scope of the country (as long as it's larger than a city) determines the need for a state level government in between the national and city/county. US needs state level because of its size. Grenada doesn't. Effective and efficient governance is having the right level of government deal with the issues needed to be dealt with by government. Does the US government really need to be involved in building a school in El Paso, TX or my home town of Wenatchee, WA?
None of that addresses why "states" is the most efficient for so many people, especially when states vary in state, population and demographics. All it really says is, "states because states existed first." Which is fine, but let's admit that it's not by design so much as it is by happenstance.
what i'm getting from him isn't that the states are necessarily *most* efficient, but that in comparison to the national government they are often *more* efficient or more relevant depending on what you're actually dealing with which i suspect we all agree on as a baseline
I guess what I am trying to get at is that if we take any specific government function and ask ourselves, "How would we most efficient design this government function?" how often would we try and make the argument, "It should be delineated by state boundaries" as a major argument, and if it does appear, why? Not a general why, but a SPECIFIC one. And more generally, how many government functions would we conceivably we able to tag with "BEST WITH STATE" and not "BEST WITH COUNTY" or "BEST WITH MULTI-STATE COMPACT" or "BEST WITH COUNTY ALLIANCE" etc. and why?
So this section probably came the closest to actually answering my questions. First, it seems that we both agree that different functions of government are appropriate at different levels of government. The question I was asking though is why Americans often place such emphasis on the STATE level - what specific reasons are there aside from "because states are special?" You then go on to list a bunch of government functions and claim they are better at certain levels - but you do not give any specific reasons for each. Some are more "obvious" than others, but the question is, how much of the underlying reasons for what levels things should be at relate or point to the STATE being a great level for it? So let's go thru some of these... we'll start with the SUPER OBVIOUS LOCAL STUFF: Fire Department - There is almost no reason for fire departments to be anything but really local, as they usually deal with only local concerns and have proximity/response times to consider Snow Removal - Similar to Fire, there is not much reason to move snow far away, and you want this service to be responsive to local conditions Others things are not so obvious: Water - This seems local at first glance, but we have to remember that water channels and water tables are not bound by any boundaries, and often the water needs of one area will impact the water needs of another, and what happens weather or pollution wise as well. This is further exarcarbated if there needs to be water treatment solutions involved, which are much more efficiently done at large scales. So should this be at the STATE level? To me, that would be quite arbitrary as there is nothing specific about state borders that really relate to water usage. Sewer - Pretty similar to water Power - <may continue to fill these out later> Schools Garbage Minimum Wage Environmental Protection Transportation/Infrastructure DMV - <I actually have a lot to say about DMV, but I 100% believe this should be a national function, it's extremely inefficient and costly to the economy for it to be at the state level> And for me, as mentioned above, part of the question is WHEN and WHY would we argue that any specific function would be best under the state level? My speculation is that there will be very few reasons why state boundaries makes sense except insofar that historically the states had jurisdiction and I don't think that qualifies as a real reason if we are just discussing theoretical efficiency. The rules/reasons we discuss should largely be GENERALLY APPLICABLE to countries of various sizes (though of course in some cases it won't be specifically applicable.. for example, a landlocked country would have no need for a navy at any level of government).
Here's something else to think about why states are special or are a better level to do various things. Where does a city or a group of people have a larger representation; state or federal? Where does El Paso have more representation, Austin or Washington DC? I would say the state. Thus it's logical that the state would be more responsive to an issue than the national level. While the issues at the national are important to everybody in the country regardless of their location. I see you recognize that different functions should be at different levels. You ask why should a function be at the state level? The converse question to the one you posed is simply why must the national level be the level to deal with a given issue?
That's silly. We aren't arguing state vs federal here, and I don't know why you keep insisting on pushing it in that direction. I am asking what makes states best for particular functions, which so far you have basically refused to actually answer. My underlying question is really, "What IS the best level for a given function and why?" So for example, we can discuss Sewer and what might be the most efficient level to deal with that function. I suspect, in most cases, the answer of "State" either doesn't come up, or doesn't actually have any legitimate backup.
mildly related note- because of how bluntly inquisitive you are, it can often come off as though you're trying to assert one side of an argument looked at in a very literal sense, you don't come off that way. but no one here seems to prioritize reading what other people are actually saying, preferring to instead read what they'd like to. (not intended as a slight on you in particular storm, more a general grievousance)
I would say states are the right level when city /county is too small, but federal is too large. There are probably some other intermediate levels that would be even better. In Minnesota there is a metropolitan commission that handles public transit as well as a few other things for the seven county metro area.
what I get from Stormchasee is that the US should fall apart and form 50 or more independent countries.
Knowing your general ideology made the converse question valid. Your initial I understood was why the relationship between the fed and states didn't apply to states and local governments. I answered. Then you went on to ask why states are special and I answered that. You then went on to clam that was not based on logic and I replied to that in at least 2 different aspects; relieve the national government and more responsive representation. Here's another; have you ever heard of the concept of the states being the laboratories of democracy? With several states you have will have several different approaches to solving problems and you can come to solutions that work more quickly. You also see what to void. If you have one top down imposed solution from the national level you better have it right, right away. Why not ask this in the first place? It depends on the issue. If it deals with national survival like defense or foreign policy, that goes to national. I'm not going to go into details here. I'm glad you seem to recognize it's an important question. Hopefully you don't just automatically think it should go to the national level.
