| SamuelRSmith said: Not so sure how it helps with accountability. Decrentralisation will only be beneficial if the States were going in a different direction to the Feds... but all levels are pretty much controlled by the Republicans/Democrats. |
Well, it would seem to follow that the closer your proximity to power, the more accountable that power is to you. At this point, there are entire states which are which don't really matter in national politics because they so reliably elect representatives for one party and always vote a certain way in presidential elections. They are reduced to being one tiny piece of a coalition.
As for the party thing, it's rather less poisonous at the state or local level. For example, you still have a lot of state representatives and senators who are conservative Democrats while they are pretty much extinct on the national level because when a Democratic politician wants to get anywhere with the national party, he has to adopt all or at least most of the Democratic orthodoxy. In a lot of ways, the moment a politician steps up to the national level he ceases to represent his state or district and becomes just another cog in his party's machine.
Plus, if power is devolved to the state level then there's some momentum to continue rolling things back to the local level. Not the end goal, but definitely a step in the right direction.
