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The EU has a parliament, a Council/Senate (representing the states), a President, and a Supreme Court (the ECJ). The EU, like the US, is a union of states. I contend that in most issues the US is too consolidated. But the EU might be too dissipated. Each risks a different danger. To be sure, if the tendency of a federal union of republics is toward consolidation, as evinced in the US, the EU ought to be applauded for leaving large chunks of powers at the state level. However, the risk of dissolution may also be realizable in the case of the EU precisely because it has probably not yet crossed the threshold in the balance of power wherein a sufficient proportion is at the federal level–such that consolidation would be the most pressing danger. In other words, the EU might have a different risk management scenerio than the US had as it consolidated from roughly 1860 through the mid twentieth century. The danger of dissolution in the EU could be related to the proclivity of state leaders there to keep a domain “in house” simply for the sake of doing so. The root cause could be the residue from twentieth century European nationalisms, which spawned two world wars and thwarted the development of a union of the states until the last decade of that century. In other words, an ideology of “country” is still extant for most Europeans. That word, I submit, is overused.

As the volcanic ash-cloud from Iceland was bringing flights in the EU to a virtual halt, airline officials were having a hard time hiding their frustration with the situation. On a conference call on April 18, 2010 with airlines hosted by Eurocontrol, the Brussels-based agency that coordinates air traffic management in the EU, one airline representative sharply chastised civil aviation authorities from the states for being inconsistent in applying flight restrictions and stressed that the flight bans were creating “a serious economic issue for us.” Having Eurocontrol responsible for coordinating air traffic in the EU while permitting the states to control their own air space is tantamount to tying the hands of the people at Eurocontrol while expecting them to use their hands to direct air traffic. In other words, the structure is that of a double-bind. While there is some benefit to differential policies across the EU in matters such as an ash-cloud that affects different regions of the EU differently, it makes little sense to open or close airspaces the size of Montana (Germany), Arizona (Spain), and Texas (France). That is, it would be like having each state in the US differentially open and close its airspace. Idaho might be open while Wyoming is closed. Imagine the logistical nightmare for the FAA, particularly should that agency be responsible nonetheless for coordinating the airspace in the US. While it might give the residents of a state of the EU a sense of pride in hearing that “German airspace is closed,” I submit that it is actually quite silly to carve up commercial airspace in such small units (with respect to the airspaces of the EU and US). Transportation technology has relativized state airspaces on both sides of the Atlantic. Whereas it once took days to cross Germany or Montana, today most flights count either state as one of several to be flown over. Of course, states like Texas and California are large enough to support a sufficient number of air-routes to be considered “air-markets” in themselves. However, such a status ought not be overdone, particularly when the FAA has the responsibility of coordinating air traffic across the US region.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/19/world/europe/19ash.html?ref=world

2010 was not a good year for the Belgium government. The governing coalition fell apart, sparking fears that Wallonia and Flanders really could not govern mutually in a federal government at the state level (something that no American state has attempted). In early 2011, the typically European integrationist Belgium government found itself at odds with a Franco-German proposal for greater fiscal coordination at the EU level for the states that had adopted the euro as their currency; the Belgium prime minister had to protect the Belgium social agreement because that was part of the deal that allowed him to step in as prime minister when forming a government was such a difficult problem. Belgium, it may be said, was suffering existentially. Should it split up, go to a looser confederation within the EU, or maintain the status quo in spite of the difficulties?

As I understand it, only 30% of the Flemish voted for the NVA in the election on June 13, 2010, so less than a majority in Flanders support splitting Belgium into two states in the EU.  I suspect there would be resistance in the European Council to Belgium becoming two states in the EU because that would mean more representation in the EU for what is now Belgium.  There was a similar resistance in the US when the southern region of Illinois wanted to seceed from Illinois and form a new state in that union.  In that case, there would be four US Senators where now there are two.

In terms of the Belgian election results of 2010, it has been typical that four parties have been needed to form a governing coalition. Therefore, the NVA won’t be able to unilaterally split Belgium up. The socialists, for example, support a united Belgium.  I don’t think the NVA’s idea of a confederation rather than a federal system in Belgium would work.  I can’t think of many cases of a federal system becoming a confederation. Power doesn’t seem to work that way.  In any case, that Belgium is itself a state in a federal system mitigates the difference that such a change would make.  Because Illinois (and California, for that matter) is so diverse politically by region, I have thought that it should have a federal system, perhaps even confederal; Illinois itself would be mainly representing the states in the US Senate and regulating relations between the states (e.g., funding highways).  Belgium would have a similar role were Flanders and Wallonia to become members of a Belgian confederation.  I think it is possible, though not probably. Kant says the same thing about the kingdom of ends, given the pathology of self-love. that is, possible but not probable. He thought world federation could bring peace. 

In reading about Belgian politics, it does seem to me that from a governance perspective splitting Belgium might not be a bad idea.  It has been rather rough governing as it is.  At some point, I would think people would ask themselves if it is worth all the trouble.  Flanderscould become a province of the Netherlands and Wallonia could easily join France. That both regions of Belgium would still be in the EU lessens the magnitude of the change. Similarly, by the way, were the Middle East to form a federation perhaps the fight over land in Isreal and Palestine would be to a certain extent cooled because it wouldn't matter as much.  An empire-level/scale federal system can make what seems to be intractable problems actually not so important, and thus the respective positions not so rigid.

Living in America, I have a very outside perspective on what is going on Europe, not to mention in Belgium. However, sometimes such a perspective can be useful to people otherwise focused in on the daily problems of governing on the ground. It is easy for any of us to take our poltical artifices too seriously.  Political entities are but dust, and to dust they will return.  We ought not get too attached to the sandcastles we build. They, like us, are mortal. Put another way, politics is naturally a sea of change, constantly churning.  So too are we. The political sand castles we build are thus apt to change or be changed with after one too many tides.  In the mixture of dynamic politics and static polities, it is wise to periodically adapt the latter to take account of the former; otherwise, a political titalwave might just inundate one’s weakened sandcastle.

The mandate to buy health-insurance may be an unconstitutional encroachment of the U.S. Government onto the liberty of its citizens. Furthermore, the rigid federal rules in the health-insurance reform law of 2010 may represent yet another way by which the state governments have been rendered servile in begging Washington for breathing room--and in a domain that may be rightly theirs, constitutionally (i.e., extrinsic to the enumerated powers assigned to the U.S. Government). The bigger story in this jurdical piece on health care is perhaps whether American federalism itself was finally being extirpated and expunged in favor of consolidation. Yet even if Americans were becoming aware of what had been a tendency for over a century, it is far from certain that they would want to do anything about it.

Ken Cuccinelli, as the Attorney General of Virginia, brought a suit challenging the US Government’s penalty for people not having health insurance (starting in 2014).  Henry Hudson, a US district court judge found that Virginia’s suit had merit and so should not be dismissed because no court has ever ruled on whether it violates the US Constitution for the US Government to require American citizens to purchase a product. “While this case raises a host of complex constitutional issues, all seem to distill to the single question of whether or not Congress has the power to regulate—and tax—a citizen’s decision not to participate in interstate commerce.”  By mentioning interstate commerce, the judge was signally that federalism is the real issue (rather than simply limited government in the US). ”This lawsuit is not about health care, it’s about our freedom and about standing up and calling on the federal government to follow the ultimate law of the land — the Constitution,” Ken Cuccinelli said. “The government cannot draft an unwilling citizen into commerce just so it can regulate him under the Commerce Clause.” This clause has been one of the principal ways in which the US Government has expanded its powers onto hitherto state powers. In an interview on August 2, 2010 on Fox, Ken Cuccinelli said after the ruling that if the US Government can stretch regulating interstate commerce to include inactivity (i.e., someone not engaged in commerce), there is no limit to the power of the US Government—meaning its enumerated powers are effectively nugatory as a constraint.  He said that if the US Government can get away with using “regulating interstate commerce” even against people not engaged in such commerce (directly or indirectly), federalism in the US is dead.

I found the announcement of the death of American federalism to be stunning, even though I am aware that the balance of power has been shifting to the US Government from those of the several states since at least 1860. Given this trend, I wonder if federalism isn’t rendered null and void already—from the sheer power already amassed by the US Government and the resulting appendix/implementation role of the state governments.  Perhaps if the US Government wins its cases against the States that are suing on the health-insurance mandate, the American people will finally realize that the horse has left the barn.  In addition to providing a governmental check on the US Government, federalism has the advantage of being able to accommodate the diversity that is inevitable in a union of states the size of countries.  The EU, for example, consists of states the size of the American states. It is natural for such a union to be diverse.  A consolidated US should be a baleful sign for the EU as it struggles for “ever closer union,” lest one size is put on all there too.  In general terms, pressures from the consolidation of an empire-scale union tend to build from the inherent hetergeneity. Such pressures can be relieved by dissolution, as in the case of the USSR, or by revolution. It could even be said that the fall of the Roman Empire could be explained by its stymied condition due to its consolidation. One size does not fit all at the empire-level, and the EU’s 27 states and the US’s 50 states constitute that level. Were the US President more oriented to the long-term viability of the American system of public governance, he would have maintained that health-care policy is in the sovereign domain of the states and used the bully pulpit to influence as many of them as he could. That way, there would be a bricollage of heath-care systems to chose from.  Before the US Government passed health-care reform, an American could get universal coverage by living in Massachusetts or a private-sector system by living in Texas.  To conflate these two societies into a muddled compromise does both a disservice. To work, federalism requires a degree of toleration whereby people in Texas are free to have a different system than the one I prefer. Ultimately, it is our lack of tolerance (which is really selfishness) that has killed our federalism. I hope the Europeans are of better character—and more aware of what is happening around them, before it is too late.

The irony here is that I am actually for universal health-care! To the extent that the private sector does not reach universal coverage, I believe that the government is obligated to stand in toguarantee the human right to medical care being fulfilled.  Just as the Coast Guard does not make its rescues contingent on a boater's character or decision to go out during a hurricane warning, seeing that each person in a country legally has a sustenance level of housing, food and medicare care irrespective of effort or character follows from the value that is inherent in any human being, unconditionally. The human right to survival is based on the pain involved in being without shelter, food or medical care when it is needed. Humans are self-aware sentient beings capable of knowing they are in pain. Existential pain, such as in the fear that one might die without medical attention, is intolerable for a human being. If a society of humans can relieve this anxiety, it should--based on the human right not to suffer such pain. This human right is akin to that which precludes torture.  Such treatment is simply beyond the pale of what a human being ought to suffer.

Given the sordid practices of American health insurance companies (such as pre-existing condition and otherwise ending coverage when people get sick—as if buying insurance were only for the good times), I do not believe that the companies should play a central role in the American health-care system. They are tailor-made for the wealthy, who may want (and can afford) health-care beyond that which every citizen should have a right to by virtue of being a human being in a civil society (i.e., social contract). To conflate the extra (i.e., unnecessary) aspects of health-care with those that are germaine to living is perhaps the category mistake at the core of relying on discreet private companies that include and exclude.

In the American context, the particular republics, or states generically-speaking, that constitute the union are the relevant polities. Both constitutionally and in terms of federalism theoretically, the diversity inherent in the empire-scale union can and should find expression at the state level.  According to The Wall Street Journal, President Obama announced at the end of February, 2011, that he "backed a bill in Congress to let states design their own ways to expand insurance coverage sooner under the health-care overhaul, in a nod to governors' complaints that federal rules [were at the time] too rigid." Specifically, the bill would move up to 2014 a part of the 2010 health insurance reform law that would otherwise take effect in 2017. That part allows states to develop alternative health insurance systems of comparable coverage that insure as many people as under the federal law. The governor of Vermont, Peter Shumlin (D) said that the change would make it easier for his state to develop a single-payer plan, under which the state would be the central funder of healthcare. This plan would eliminate the inefficiencies involved in having several private health insurance companies, each of which would be inherently oriented to excluding people deemed "inconvenient" (meaning costly). A feeding machine cannot help to feed; its very nature so determines it to feed. So too, for-profit companies are inexorably profit-seeking.

In terms of federalism, the bill proposed in early 2011 represents a move in the direction whereby federalism can accommodate the diversity inherent in an empire-level political union. However, that the governors were put in the position of having to complain about strictures from the US Government regarding a domain that is properly theirs (assuming providing or mandating health insurance is not one of the enumerated powers) and beg for permission to accommodate their particular circumstances is an indication that American federalism is actually a top-down conditionally (from the top) partially-decentralized consolidated system.  As an alternative, the states could have been free to develop their own systems, with the U.S. Government (ideally with the Governor's Association as the legislative chamber in Congress representing the states) establishing a floor or minimum standard. Of course, it could be argued that if health care is a human right, then universal health-care irrespective of means is that floor. Even so, as in the EU, the member states of the US could be charged with implimenting universal health-care in which ever ways they see fit. This comes close to the bill proposed in early 2011, but the American health-insurance law does far more than set a general directive or standard for the states to implement as they see fit. If the floor is less than universal coverage, then the flexibility could more fully accommodate the diversity that is inherent in the United States.

In spite of my bias for my ideological position on healthcare as a human right, I recognize that the majority of the citizens of Oklahoma might disagree with me. That Oklahoma is a polity (and sovereign in its domains) means that it can and should play a role in determining what constitutes human rights. Oklahomians should have the sort of system that matches the ideology expressed by their majority (or super-majority). To say otherwise would be to violate their political right to self-determination. Moreover, it would ignore the American republics that constitute the United States and treat that political union as akin to France or Germany, which are states in another union, the E.U. Indeed, those two states a bit smaller than Texas and Montana, respectively.

As the US is an empire-scale union made up of country-scale (and semi-sovereign) polities, we cannot afford such a mistake. I have to understand what the United States are even as I pontificate on my health-care ideology.  Sadly, this step is rarely evinced by my fellow Americans.  As Sandra O’Conner, retired justice of the US Supreme Court, once said: “Congress is acting like a state legislature.”  I asked her: why don’t you restrain them?  She replied, “It takes five of us.”  That is, it takes five justices to agree to “just say no” to yet another encroachment by the US Government.  Were I to press the justice, I would have pointed out that the US Supreme Court is a branch of that government, and thus that court has an inherent conflict of interest in ruling on conflicts between that government and those of the states. Separation of powers within the US Government (between the branches) notwithstanding, there is still a US Government interest that its three branches share.  Not surprisingly, the overwhelming number of US Supreme Court decisions on federalism have been for the US Government’s position.  In other words, our federal system has a fatal flaw in its very design. I contend that this flaw has made possible, and perhaps even facilitated, the death of American federalism.

Sources:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/08/02/judge-permits-virginia-health-care-law-challenge-continue/?test=latestnews

http://video.foxnews.com/v/4300198/virginia-suit-against-health-care-law-to-proceed

Janet Adamy, "Obama Offers Skeptical Governors Bigger Role Under the Health Law," The Wall Street Journal, March 1, 2011, p. A4.

According to The New York Times, Florida, like about a dozen other states, debated a proposed amendment to its state constitution that would try to block, at least symbolically, much of the proposed federal health care overhaul on the grounds that it tramples individual liberty. Before getting to the matter of federalism, whose primary object is the protection of liberty, I raise the issue of an industry with such a vested interest making substantial campaign contributions to the supporters of the amendment nonetheless. I contend that there is an ethical conflict of interest in the practice, even if it is constitutional (assuming wealth as free speech, which is problematic).

What united the proposal’s legislative backers in Florida was more than this ideology. Its 42 co-sponsors, all Republicans, were almost all recipients of outsized campaign contributions from major health care interests, a total of about $765,000 in 2008.  Around the 2008 election, the groups that provide health care contributed about $102 million to state political campaigns across the country, surpassing the $89 million the same donors spent at the federal level. This opened the backers and their state government to attack by those "nationalists" who wanted the federal government to be involved in health-insurance. Indeed, they argued that the magnitude of the health care industry’s contributions demonstrated the dangers of leaving such a question up to individual states, where campaign finance and ethics rules vary from strict to negligible. The industry has enormous power at the state level, they contended, and very few states have state-level consumer groups that are able to lobby effectively against them. Yet the alternative of consolidation of the "extended republic" carries with it other dangers.

Indeed, the matter of the US Government’s enumerated powers was not lost on the state legislators opposed to a federal health-care law.  “We are trying to prepare, and trying to send a message that there is no reason for those decisions to get made at the federal level,” said Representative Linda L. Upmeyer, a Republican who is leading the council’s efforts in Iowa.  Without “opt-in” or “opt-out” provisions in the federal legislation, state constitutional amendments would be preempted, and thus merely symbolic.  It seems like a lot of work just to make a statement. 

In terms of health-care policy, states opting out could compromise the economies of scale being assumed by the federal cost-saving measures.  However, such policy reflects ideological preferences, which can vary from state to state.   The effect on our system of public governance (i.e., federalism) ought to be considered as well, lest we inadvertantly run our ship of state into a wall.  Consolidation at the expense of federalism (i.e., semi-sovereign political units—in this case states that are republics) works against the inherent diversity in an empire-scale Union.  However, if the health-care industry is able to dominate health-care policy at the state level—a consolidated industry against comparatively smaller republics—then federal action might be necessary to protect republican principles…yet at the expense of federalism.   In other words, what if the cost of maintaining federalism is rule by industry?  Governmental consolidation may well be foisted on us by necessity, given the power of consolidated private capital in the US.   Yet by this logic, why stop at the US Government?  To be sure, the health-care and banking industries have demonstrated their influence on Congressional action (and inaction).  Why not then argue that a federation of the US and the EU is necessary to create a governmental entity large and powerful enough to fend off the encroachments of big business?
I suspect that anti-trust legislation is necessary not only to protect the viability of competition and the market, but also to keep industry from capturing government.  The latter is particularly important where federalism exists because the smaller units of a federal system are perhaps more easily dominated by big business.   Sadly, those who are in favor of free-market health-insurance (rather than government involvement) do not also push for enforcement of the anti-trust law.

In terms of US federalism specifically, federal health-care legislation cannot be justified by any of the enumerated powers granted to the US Goverment. So it must be the spending clause that the feds are using.  The US Government may spend for the general welfare.  In my view, this is best interpreted as “for that which the states cannot do” or “for emergencies rather than ordinary spending.”  Otherwise, the spending clause easily trumps any enumeration at all because with spending comes power (i.e., strings).   My interpretation dovetails with the heterogenious nature of an empire-scale Union such as the US or EU, wherein consolidation is not natural.   Broadening out to political economy, the problem then is the ability of big business to bully state governments.  This can be viewed as a threat to the semi-sovereignty of the states, and thus to the federal system itself.  Federalism, in other words, may make it possible for industries to veto any reform they do not favor (and to ensure special treatment for themselves).   Large concentrations of commercial wealth may be able to use federalism for their purposes, and perhaps a consolidated government of the Union less well.  In allowing such private concentrations of power, we may be forcing ourselves to consolidate our public governance.  State governments are reduced to symbolic amendments (i.e., impotence); one size fits all, across a continent.  Yet the alternative is capture by industry.  However, this can be a false dichotomy.  If the business interest can be trumped at the federal level, US anti-trust law could be expanded to include “protection of the state governments.”  The US Government could still serve as a check on those governments (e.g., when they are captured by an industry), and vice versa!   It is perhaps because this is not in the interest of big business that we no longer have the checks and balances of federalism.  In any case, we can’t very well afford to look at federalism in isolation, though it is equally dangerous to ignore it in favor of the issue, or flavor, of the day.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/29/health/policy/29lobby.html?_r=1&ref=politics

In the US Senate race in Massachusetts between Scott Brown and Martha Coakley, there was some resistance to the proposed federal health care legislation. This pushback was in line with reinvigorating a federal system for the United States.

Several independent voters said they wanted to elect Mr. Brown to block the health care bill being considered by Congress.  They denounced the US House and Senate bills as full of deals for special interests — though several said they thought Massachusetts’ law extending near-universal coverage, one of the models for the national bill, had been largely a success. “It’s not perfect, but why should we have to pay again when we have health care?” said Ms. Grenham, who works as a physical therapist.

That it is easier for a state government than the federal government to legislate on something like healthcare is no accident; the founders designed the US Government to be cumbersome precisely so most of the domestic legislating would be done by the state republics, which are closer to the people.  Hence Massachusetts has close to universal coverage while the majority of Texans might want to pass.  One size does not fit all in a heterogeneous empire-level Union.  For the US Government to go beyond its enumerated powers to duplicate what is already in Massachusetts would be to demonstrate the folly of consolidation and the related fallacy that every political unit in a federal system must have the same policy.  Although I firmly believe in universal coverage as a right rather than a privilege, I respect the right of the people of, say, Texas, to disagree and have a republic without it.   Such tolerance is necessary to a viable federal system.  Too many people imposing their agendas far from home must surely end in consolidation, which entails duplication where state governments are not already impotent.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/18/us/politics/18massachusetts.html?ref=politics

In other posts, I have argued that the EU and the US are of the same political genus or level.  That is, both are modern empire-level Unions that contain polities on the scale of the early modern kingdom.  In other words, the American states are roughly equivalent to the European states.  I have also argued that once this basis of comparison is established, useful comparisons (and contrasts) can be made.  Contrarywise, likening apples with oranges is apt to lead to erroneous conclusions (which has been the norm).   In the March 2, 2010 issue of the NYT, Roger Cohen illustrates how useful EU-US comparisons can be.  He is careful to compare the EU now not to the current US, but to the US a few decades into its founding.  One would not compare new with old wine; new should be compared with old when it too was new.   The US under its Articles treaty (and before that as a military alliance) was far less integrated politically and economically than the EU is today (which is roughly at where the US was in 1790). 

Lamenting the concern of the EU states that have done a better job than others (Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain) on debt-management, Cohen sees a parallel in the early US.  He writes, “More than two centuries ago, the newborn United States faced a similar crisis of integration. With the Constitution approved, Alexander Hamilton, as treasury secretary to President George Washington, grappled with proving that the government of the 13 states that now existed on paper could function in practice. The economy was a shambles, beset by debt incurred in the fight for liberty. In 1790, Hamilton set about establishing the financial credibility of the federal government. Central to his proposals was that the government would assume the debts of the states. This precipitated the “assumption” crisis because different states had different levels of debts and had proved more or less conscientious in paying them off.”  Cohen maintains that a similar “assumption” crisis would befall the EU as states like Finland and Germany brissle at the EU assuming the outstanding debt of some of the Southern states (notably Greece).

Cohen goes on to note that the “assumption” crisis was resolved in the US by creating Washington, D.C. near Virginia to appease Madison and Jefferson (the US’s institutions had been in New York City).  Cohen doesn’t see any such deal in the works in Europe, so he concludes that the tensions between having a centralized currency and federal (i.e., EU and state-level) fiscal policy will continue.  Comparing oranges with oranges (which is rare…at least during the winter of 2010 given Florida’s cold weather then), he argues that “Greece is a far smaller economy than crisis-hit California, but thanks to Hamilton, California’s travails are absorbed within a huge economy where most taxing and spending is done by the federal government. Athens agonistes has no such cushion.” This is a very good point.  After the earthquake of 2010 in Chile, I was thinking along similar lines (i.e., the difference that a SAU would make for Chile’s recovery). 

However, Cohen falters from his otherwise excellent basis of comparison.  Ignoring the governmental sovereignty that the European Court of Justice has ruled belongs to the EU over its state governments (and constitutions), he  views the EU as simply “the halfway house of monetary union, fiscal divergence and à la carte national politics.”  In actuality, the EU is far more—just ask a European whether he or she has encountered any of the EU’s laws and regulations (which go beyond monetary union).  I suspect that Cohen is thinking of the EU only in terms of its monetary authority and generalizing that to “what Europe is.”  His ending line, “The differences between America and Europe go beyond the political to their very nature,” can be interpreted as a denial of the EU-US basis of comparison that is the basis of his comparisons (oranges with oranges).  If the EU is merely economic whereas the early US was political and economic, then the EU and US are not of the same political genus, which would render comparisons between them questionable at best.  But the EU does have political or governmental institutions, such as a court (the ECJ) and a parliament.  The ECJ functions as the Supreme Court (even ruling against state constitutions at odds with EU law in an EU enumerated power).  Furthermore, the EU Parliament has a role in the enactment of laws that cannot be reduced to state laws.

Undoubtedly from his truncated view of the EU,  Cohen generalizes too much in concluding that “ever closer union” will not occur in the EU because of the differences among the state governments’ respective debt-levels (relative to the state economies).  The EU is much more than a currency, I would argue, and other lines of integration will not necessarily be impeded by monetary divergences.  To be sure, political differences from the latter may spill over onto other policy domains, but I believe that Cohen is being to much of a monetary reductionist in casting doom on the EU as a whole.

Comparing the EU now to the US in 1790, there are more adequate structural safeguards against consolidation at the Union-level of government than there were in the US.  For example, the heads of the state governments sit on the European Council whereas the counterparts in the US sent delegates to the US Senate (which represents the state governments even today).  The US could learn a thing or two from the Europeans and replace the US Senate with the Governor’s Association.  More balance in power between the state governments and that of the Union would be more likely as a result.  Of course, that the EU began with regulations and is only now picking up powers that are more typical for the Union level could mean that the EU could consolidate power from its state governments (esp. as Europeans gain more of a sense of being Europeans…perhaps in 100 years or so…as was the case in the US).

My advise to the Europeans is: don’t be afraid to deny all that the EU has become, and redouble your efforts to safeguard the state governments from an encroaching EU government.  These to things sound contradictory, but they are not.   For only by realizing what the EU is politically (i.e., a federal government) will you realize how important it is to construct a federal structure that works against a consolidation of power far from the people of Europe.  Of course, this does not mean starving the EU, for then dissolution and possible future wars would be likely.  So it is a federal balance that should be strived for, and you can structure your Union (and its states) in such a way that balance is achieved (you are not yet there) and maintained.  US History provides a case study of what NOT to do if this is your goal.  We have really screwed up federalism here (and most of us don’t even realize it).  Hopefully, by comparing the EU with the US you can do better.  Maybe that will prompt folks like Cohen to look at Europe and say, “Hey, we can do that too. Afterall, the US is a Union of states too.”   It is of course possible to re-trace and correct for a wrong turn federally speaking.  Anyway, bonne chance, mes Amies!  Gut Gleuck! Viel, viel Gleuck!

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/02/opinion/02iht-edcohen.html?hp

Hamilton writes, “If the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no resource left but in the exertions of that original right of self-defence, which is paramount to all positive forms of government.” Federalist Papers, #28, p. 178. Ironically, Hobbes espouses a broader right—that of self-preservation—even in spite of the sovereignty that he presumes should go with the monarch. Whereas self-defense is largely limited to repelling attack, self-preservation includes the right to sustenance, including food, shelter and medical care. Madison recognizes this right as “the great principle of self-preservation.” Federalist Papers, #43, p. 297. One might say that this right or principle is in the right of life in “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” The right to survive is antipodal to the state of nature, where life is dog-eat-dog. According to Madison, “the weaker individual is not secured against the violence of the stronger” in the state of nature. Federalist #51. So too, the weak individual is not secured against hunger and sickness, or homelessness.  Such life is, according to Thomas Hobbes, “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”  Leviathan. So we look to government not only to further our happiness, but also to provide a net below which lies the raw state of nature.  This is essentially what government is for; human nature has a penchant for returning to nature, so governmental institutions must use coercion to sustain the social contract.
Madison looked to the State Governments to enact laws in fulfillment of this principle. Whereas the powers “delegated by the proposed Constitution to the Federal Government, are few and defined,” those “which are to remain in the State Governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negociation, [sic] and foreign commerce,” … the “powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects, which … concern the lives, liberties and properties of the people.” Federalist Papers, #45, p. 313. To the extent that the federal government is at all involved in public housing, food stamps and health-insurance, Madison would say that that government has encroached on the prerogatives of the States. He might conclude, moreover, that the balance of power in federalism between the general and State governments has been severely compromised or lost. Madison assumed that the State governments would be better administered than would the federal government, and that the people would side with their respective States.  To the extent that these undergirding assumptions are invalid, the federal balance is at risk.  To what harm?

The loss of the checks enabled by the balance of federalism means that the more powerful government can more easily act tyrannically at the expense of our liberties.  In other words, we can expect further encroachments by the federal government.  This is at the expense not only of our liberties, but of the inherent diversity that exists within the United States, which is an empire-scale union of republics.  We forget what we are at our own peril. Sadly, Madison assumed that the people would be ever vigilant in protecting the balance of federalism. Without this vigilance and electoral political power, federalism itself, as well as its checks and balance, is doomed.  It is, one might contend, already a fait accompli.

See: The Federalist, ed. Jacob E. Cooke, Hanover, N.H.: Wesleyan Press, 1961.