[gremlinsinc]

I could see that, maybe the U.S. should just separate into smaller city states. Let each fend for themselves... It'd be much easier for people to get what they want out of a national government - they could just move to the state that actually represents their interests better... Want universal Healthcare / Legalized Marijuana / try california. Want to make sure nobody gets handouts at all including SSI, Medicaid, and Medicare move to Louisiana or Texas.

[neuromantik8086]

I've often wondered if the U.S. would work better if there were some sort of multi-layered federalism wherein each cultural region (Northeast, Deep South, Cascadia, etc) got their own executive and legislative office above the state level, but not at the federal level. Doing this would probably eliminate a lot of the gridlock in DC since people could work on cultural and social issues at that level rather than across all 50 states (although it would also probably make things a lot worse for minorities in the South...).