[KurtFF8]

I was thinking about Federalism recently after a class where we discussed the Canadian health care system and how the provinces (or states) have to separately run their systems which often leads to competing over doctors (by having the doctors have an "exit option"). This made me think of how Federal systems are almost always set up in a way where the states often compete over Federal resources through various different ways. This makes me think that Federalism automatically includes the assumption of Liberal economics and the idea that "competition is productive" built right into it. Now this may seem obvious as the US Federal system, for example, was being built in the context of a liberal ideology and structure, but do you think that Federalism is Liberal at its core? Or do you think a non-Liberal Federal system would be possible or even valuable?

[Dave]

I think the present assumption is mostly correct. Any state within a federal system that pursues leftist policies will see its economy decline and tax revenues shrink as businesses and talented people exit the state. For a historical example, look at how Southern states adopted right to work laws and subsequently captured the textile industry, decimating unionized (and higher-tax) New England mills.

[Dr House]

...Yet California is a net contributor to the federal coffers, indicating a large presence of wealthy people given the highly progressive nature of US federal taxes.

[Dave]

That's because it's a large state, and the nature of the Senate means that larger states are almost always net contributors. Furthermore, the IRS allows you to deduct state and local taxes from your federal income taxes, meaning that states don't necessarily suffer from higher personal income taxes (corporate taxes are a different story).

[Dr House]

the nature of the Senate means that larger states are almost always net contributors.

Interesting. Why is this?

[Dave]

Each state gets two senators regardless of size. In other words, 600,000 Alaskans have roughly the same amount of power in the Senate as 35 million Californians. Guess who wins when budgeting is done?

[ChristianRight]

Federalism was an accident of Imperialism, its weaknesses observed by the King of Great Britain, the British tried to reform Federalism into Unitarianism and failed in 1770s hence the production of the United States which is the only truly Federal country because of its foundations in the Federal/Unitary struggles of the 1760s-1780s. It's fairly far away from Liberalism and is more a raw instrument of imperialism which explains how it was used by the Yankee and Southern nations to colonize the west culminating in bleeding Kansas where Yankee and Southern colonists were killing each other long before the Civil War began. The Civil War reshaped US Federalism into something of a more tamed Imperial power (the Federal Government) exacting and constantly reforming its means of control over the Constitutionally mandated imperialist powers, the States, which constitutionally theoretically have enough power to decide life, and death, and the power to colonize any territories they deem necessary for colonization and imperialism and genocide through their influence on the Federal Government via its contribution to Federal offices. It no longer works out that way however. I don't know how you call any of that liberal.

[Zerogouki]

Guess who wins when budgeting is done?

China.