[massysett]

> As we're seeing right now this isn't true.

It's absolutely true. My county and state government has not changed. My kid goes to the public school, which has not changed. Indeed some of my state officials are suing the federal government.

State and local governments provide many services of enormous importance: schools, police, fire, roads. The President is not ruling all of that.

[bombcar]

The problem isn't who provides it, it's where the funding comes from.

If the local school is 90% funded by local taxes, they can ignore the state and federal government for quite awhile.

But if it's only 10% funded directly by local taxes, and the rest (even if coming from the locality!) is funneled through the state and/or federal government, then they can be squeezed on the money side.

[xp84]

Fair point.

For the past few decades, though, it feels like we’ve been locked in a permanent war between two opposing factions that barely admit each other’s right to exist, let alone to disagree, with the goal of forcing federal government policy to agree with, alternatingly, the “left” or the “right” orthodoxy and for the feds to force those ideas on the whole country.

Wouldn’t it be more productive to just massively cut federal taxes and obligations, and let Republicans live in Republican controlled states and let Democrats live in Democrat controlled states? Then the state governments can raise taxes and be able to use their taxpayers’ money as they see fit.

This way, if you want any category of government goodies, from single-payer healthcare to fixing the roads, you only need to convince your fellow state residents to pay for and tolerate it, and the people you don’t trust from far away can’t block you.

The federal government has only shown any particular skill at operating the military (no one’s dared to invade us since 1812!). Maybe we just let them handle that, plus uncontroversial standards and maybe make trade agreements. Let states handle the rest.

[bombcar]

That’s close to the original plan (even more so if you look at the articles of confederation) and is actually quite present in many things (look at the ACA for example).

But it should be more explicit in many cases. As we see routing everything through the federal government gives it more power than “expected” - like how it regulates drinking age via federal highway funds.

[mschuster91]

> State and local governments provide many services of enormous importance: schools, police, fire, roads. The President is not ruling all of that.

A lot of that hinges closely on cooperation with the feds, and the Trump admin has repeatedly said they will go and target "sanctuary cities" - so much for states rights.

In doubt, the federal government will pull off another drinking ban - the age for drinking is 21 because the federal government threatened to retract highway funding many decades ago, and that was explicitly ruled to be constitutional [1].

Do not think even for a single second that you are safe from the impact of the Trump admin even if you live in a deep blue city in a deep blue state.

In doubt, your daughter might not be able to access plan B any more (or your son stuck paying child support) because, of course, that one is on the target list as well, or your trans kid might not receive the care they need because the federal government plans to ban that as well, and if it's just by banning federally active insurances from covering the cost for such treatment. Or if you're Black and your kid needs to take ADHD meds? Say goodbye to your kid [2].

You all are anything but safe, but by the time you realize it because it starts finally affecting you and your loved ones, it will be too late. Take that warning from a German and heed it because we actually lived through that and learn about the time of 1933-45 and the years leading up to it in school!

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Minimum_Drinking_Age_...

[2] https://wordinblack.com/2025/02/rfk-jr-black-kids-adhd-drugs...