Obama's Phony Federalism | Gene Healy | Cato Institute: Commentary

Obama's Phony Federalism | Gene Healy | Cato Institute: Commentary: "Just a few years back, the Republicans — nominally the party of federalism — were busily wielding federal power to enforce red state values — prosecuting medical marijuana patients, punishing doctors participating in Oregon's 'Death with Dignity' initiative, and trying to overturn Florida court decisions that allowed Terry Schiavo to be removed from life support. In that odd political climate, you often heard liberals lamenting the decline of states' rights.

That strange new respect for the 10th Amendment lasted roughly as long as the blue team's exile from power.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan said recently that 'if we accomplish one thing in the coming years, it should be to eliminate the extreme variation in standards across America.' Diversity is bad, uniformity double-plus good; get with the program, comrade.

But one of federalism's core virtues is the enormous diversity it allows. Decentralization makes it easier for Americans to escape unwelcome state experiments with fiscal and social policy.

It enhances the political power of individual citizens by allowing important decisions of governance to be settled closest to where Americans live and work. And it avoids making politics a centralized war of all against all, where each contested issue is settled in a one-size-fits-all fashion at the level furthest from the people."