[salawat]

The reason this hasn't been done is that historically it was taken as a given that the Federal Government were the last people you wanted to do something like that.

The U.S. is a union of States each with different cultures, attitudes, histories, and needs. It was recognized early on that A STRONG Federal government given responsibility to do ANYTHING at a nationwide scale would quickly rustle jimmies as people would begin to feel more and moredisenfranchised by having institutions forced upon them by people who didn't live there.

Common sense thus dictated the country be run from the bottom up. Delegating only certain unquestionable authority to the Federal Government so as to provide a framework for settling disputes between States, and leaving States to handle their own affairs.

It seems to have become more in vogue for issues to end up bubbling straight to the National Congress without passing through a State first.

Nowadays with mainstream media gushing to its various audiences the National Congress seems to have taken center stage, but there is also increased unrest by those uninterested in having their State's ability to run itself as it will usurped by the Federal.

[squirrelicus]

Right. If I had a tenth the hubris that 20th century authoritarian leaders of the USA had when they decided article 1 section 8 and the 14th amendmemt granted the federal government unlimited power (in spite of the 10th amendment), I would ignore this point. But it's always a valid one.

Pragmatically I'm not suggesting an expansion of federal power, since it already de facto has national identification power for both criminal purposes and entitlements in addition to statues regulating elections. This being said, I would support an amendment to make a tiny expansion to the census provision to support a federal indentification system because I believe the benefits far out weigh the costs.