STEPHEN MOORE: Blue State Governors Suddenly Yearn For Federalism
I argued for many months before the election that regardless of the outcome, nearly half of Americans would be very unhappy. My point was that the only way we can “all get along” as a country given our deep ideological…
I argued for many months before the election that regardless of the outcome, nearly half of Americans would be very unhappy.
My point was that the only way we can “all get along” as a country given our deep ideological divisions is by devolving power out of Washington and back to the states and letting them decide policy.
Education, environment, climate change, labor issues, abortion, tax levels and welfare benefits should all be policies left to the 50 states. These should all be state issues not federal issues. You won’t find the words education or energy policy in the United States Constitution. That was no oversight by our Founding Fathers. They believed these issues resided with the “states and the people.”
Well, lo and behold, Donald Trump won and blue state governors are demanding that Washington leave them alone.
Democratic governors are lobbying for the feds to leave their states alone. You may have seen that Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey and Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York are organizing resistance campaigns against Trump policies.
They want to set their own labor and climate change policies and not be poked by the Trump administration. If Republicans are true constitutionalists, they should let the blue states dictate their own policies.
One problem is that the Democratic governors want to have power over one of the few powers that does legitimately rest with the federal government — immigration policy. States can’t make up their own policies on who to let into the country. They can’t harbor criminal aliens who have entered the nation illegally.