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To my knowledge, no state (even the ones that have state income taxes) has tried to deny tax-free status to political groups based on whether they were conservative or not.
Only the Feds have done that.
Good point.
The Fed originally took some powers from the states and assigned them to itself (power to determine discrimination by race, etc.) when some of the states abused that power. Now that the Fed is abusing some of ITS power, should we take the powers it's abusing, and return them to the states?
Maybe the power to levy taxes on incomes should be stripped from the Fed govt (by repealing the 16th amendment) and returned to the states, as it originally was. Then we could pick which state we wanted to live in, based on how much of our livelihood the state takes away, without leaving the country.
HurricaneKid, I'm glad you brought up this idea.
I just made a thread about it. Such idea has been discussed many times before.
But there has never been a more appropriate time to strip power from the Federal government and return it to the states.
Except maybe during the Great Depression, when exploding big-govt policies turned a sharp recession into a truly GREAT depression.
You assume the states want the responsiblity of running fuctions[sic].
He didn't assume that.
If state or local governments decide that certain functions are not worth the cost of running them, that is their decision to make. If the states' voters disagree, I'm sure the state/local govt will hear about it at the next election. Again, that's their choice.
BTW, each state can scale its participation up or down according to what they think is most approriate for their constituents. If a state's constituents don't want to participate, why should they be forced to?
BTW, if all the states decide a function is not worth what it costs to run it, but the Fed govt feels it IS worth running... doesn't that mean that the Fed govt is WRONG? Or at least, is on the losing end of the vote?
The Interstate Highway System authorized by Eisenhower, had nothing to do with Post Roads, since he knew that argument wouldn't fly. They were built as part of a National Defense system. That's why it has oddball requirements like every ten miles or so, there has to be a two-mile straight stretch, etc. That's for bomber and fighter aircraft to land on if needed during a war. It wasn't explicitly written into the regulations for the system, but the roads stick to it whenever possible.
You do realize that snopes isn't the defacto truth about anything, right?
Behind the legend: In 1956, the United States Congress added funding for emergency military landing strips to the Federal Highway-Aid Act and, as a cost-saving measure, indicated that landing strips and interstate highways were to occupy the same parcels of land. To comply with this act, the highway department indicated that every fifth mile of interstate highway would be perfectly straight.
Some years later, when the enormous task of completing the new highway system was complete, military strategists brought to Congress' attention the fact that the preponderance of handy landing sites would prove very convenient for an invading army. This led to additional federal funding for overpasses and power lines across the straight stretches of highway, and the building of tall, solid medians that effectively cut the "landing strip" widths in half. It was also decided that future repairs and resurfacing of the highway would be done with regular asphalt instead of the more expensive landing-strip appropriate material.
In other words they actually spent more money so the freeway system couldn't be used as a landing strip. The polar opposite of the legend, however bits and pieces (more than snopes will admit) are true.
You do realize that snopes isn't the defacto truth about anything, right?
I certainly do, and I appreciate your link. That said, since Snopes actually offers citations and your link didn't, I think I'm going to go with Snopes here.
I find that local and state governments somehow manage to be EVEN MORE corrupt and insane and inept than the Federal government, which we know is saying a lot.
Taxes vary widely by state. Further, the federal government compels states to act in a certain way by withholding funding if they don't do as the fed wants...
....which is a flat violation of the so-called "Welfare Clause", which states that all spending of Federal tax money, must be applied to all Americans equally.
Withholding Federal money for, say, schools in California because they didn't do something the Fed wanted, while not withholding that money for schools in Colorado, violates the Constitution.
Not that the Fed has cared two hoots about violating the Constitution, for many decades.
If anything can be done with one office versus fifty offices, i say do it with one and save money.
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