Could a weaker central government work in the US today?

[Obama24]

As I get older, my thoughts tend to a sort of leftist, federalist, libertarianism.

To wit, I support universal healthcare, I support pot being legalized and I support trans people having healthcare rights and access (basically I don't care what someone does to their body or puts in it or who they sleep with - it's not my business).

What I do feel however is that our Congress really doesn't represent their constituents anymore; I feel the executive branch is bloated and the President is a bit too powerful; and the idea that 9 people in Washington make decisions that effect the lives of 300+ million seems a bit dystopian to me, especially after Dobbs.

I feel local and state governments do a better job of protecting the interests of their respective peoples more than a bloated bureaucracy in Washington do, yet I am torn.

Is there a way to decentralize power from Washington, while retaining things like Medicare, roads, national parks, etc? Even just a little?

[Vice President Christian Man]

Your viewpoint isn't uncommon. They could just grant funding to the states for these programs which was the norm until the Great Society.

[Blue3]

We just need to allow more state compacts. Oversimplifying, let's say the  West Coast and the Northeast have extraordinary will to have single-payer healthcare, but it's going nowhere in Congress. Allow them all to create a compact where they share the same single-payer system together. Some/most states are too small to run something like that, even if there's the political will. But if enough can still band together, there should be support for them to do so.

[Pro-Israel, anti-Bibi]

It basically is already pretty weak. That's by design.

A central plank of far-right organizations like the Federalist Society, Heritage Foundation, etc is to make the government nonfunctional. The point of something like overturning Chevron(which grants federal agencies some deference in their operation and decisionmaking powers) is to force all new policies to go through Congress. Congress is, thanks to the slavery-based filibuster, basically useless. If agencies are told they can't act without Congressional approval, they can't act. The corps love that for two reasons - one, they are mostly regulated by agencies, and will no longer have to worry about that pesky EPA or NLRB; two, people recognize that government isn't functional, don't understand why, and attribute it to some ethereal idea of "the gubmint don't want to work." Wouldn't it be better if our mail was delivered by FedEx instead of the USPS? Oh, btw, stamps now cost $6.74.

To the point in the original post, a state can't really implement universal healthcare on its own. American healthcare prices are bloated beyond belief by design, and budgetary estimates for states that have looked into doing this are based on those fake prices, and arriving at truly outrageous numbers not at all reflective of the true expense. It won't work unless you control the whole system, and then you're actually saving money once you stop paying the fake prices and stop having to funnel your money through useless third party insurance middlemen.

[ReallySuper]

i think what obama24 is getting at is actually more or less the green party platform. its basically understanding that we need broad public ownership/"nationalization" of things like healthcare, energy, transportation infrastructure, etc. but also that centralization is not really democratic or responsive to the people. the ideal would be something like howie hawkins' plan for a national health service that is both universal (i.e. everyone is covered in a publicly owned program that eliminates private/corporate healthcare) while still being under local community control rather than some unaccountable federal bureaucracy. the same structure is basically replicated in the green party's ecosocialist green new deal and most of its platform/policy proposals

[Obama24]

i think what obama24 is getting at is actually more or less the green party platform. its basically understanding that we need broad public ownership/"nationalization" of things like healthcare, energy, transportation infrastructure, etc. but also that centralization is not really democratic or responsive to the people. the ideal would be something like howie hawkins' plan for a national health service that is both universal (i.e. everyone is covered in a publicly owned program that eliminates private/corporate healthcare) while still being under local community control rather than some unaccountable federal bureaucracy. the same structure is basically replicated in the green party's ecosocialist green new deal and most of its platform/policy proposals

Something like this, yes. Basically it would be cool if each state was like its own little nation, except in the areas you mention - a high degree of autonomy except in areas that promote the general welfare such as healthcare, energy, transportation, roads, mail, etc.

Environmental policy for instance should be left up to the states, but with some kind of grant system or drawn from a common national fund for said policy. EG, I live in a coastal area. If my state decided to build sea walls, they could. They could fund it themselves, but if that funding proved too costly for the local taxpayer, than they could apply for a grant or fund (which would eventually be paid back) from the federal government.

[Mr. Smith]

no.