The E.U. as a Bystander on the Global Stage: A Self-Inflicted Wound

Why has the E.U. been sidelined amid the military tensions in the Middle East? The answer lies with the E.U.’s federal system, rather than the size of its economy or of its population. The E.U. certainly could have more geopolitical sway abroad were it not for a vulnerability being exploited within its own federal system. The vulnerability stems from a refusal by some state officials to recognize and respect the qualitative and quantitative differences between the federal and the state levels of the E.U. Specifically, when the governor (i.e., chief executive and/or head of state) of a state operates as if a federal-level official, especially that of a federal president, the authority of the actual federal president is undercut, hence weakening that person’s ability to convince the heads of foreign governments to include the E.U. president or foreign minister in multilateral negotiations centered on the Middle East, for example. Even unconsciously, foreign leaders may say to themselves, why should we respect the president of the E.U. if she is so easily upstaged by the leader of an E.U. state who is acting as if he were president of the European Commission?  To speak with one voice, and to be able to speak for the E.U. rather than just one state thereof, an E.U. official must be the speaker. Macron of the E.U. state of France cannot speak for the E.U., but Von der Leyen could, provided her space is respected by the governors of the states. This is not to say that this is the only reason why the E.U. has been sidelined from negotiations on Middle East warfare; rather, my contention is that this reason is typically overlooked due to the Euroskeptic ideological delusion that the E.U. does not have a federal system of government even though since 1993, governmental sovereignty has indeed been split between the states and the Union. Perhaps the underlying question here is whether continuing to clutch at the anti-federalist ideology is worth the E.U. continuing to be weakened unnecessarily from within, and thus sidelined from international negotiations that do not center on Europe. Making such blind-spots transparent is indeed a valuable occupation, even if it can be infuriating to people whose interests and ideology are served best if societies look the other way.

In June, 2025, Claude Moniquet, a European formerly in the field of intelligence, told a journalist that the E.U. had been left “sitting on the sidelines” as Israel pummeled Gaza and commenced a bombing in Iran.[1] “Europeans have been pretty much excluded from all major diplomatic manoeuvres around the war in Gaza or the war in Lebanon,” he added.[2] So even though the president of the E.U.’s executive branch, Ursula Von der Leyen, wrote on 13 June 2025, “Diplomatic efforts are crucial to preventing further escalation,” after having spoke with Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, words are just words if they are from the sidelines rather than after having been dealt a hand of cards at the power-table.[3] I submit that the irrelevance of Von der Leyen’s words is partly due to Emmanuel Macron of the E.U. state of France having “stolen the thunder” by putting himself up as speaking for the E.U. on Gaza.

For instance, during a three-hour televised interview in early May, 2025, Macron said that Europe should consider sanctioning Israel over the humanitarian situation in Gaza, where “hundreds of thousands” were thought to be “facing starvation.”[4] Even though he was understandably frustrated by the lack of sanctions at the federal level, the president of France had no place to speak for Europe, as he was not an E.U. official at the time. To be sure, the thorny problem of the principle of unanimity in the European Council and the Council of Ministers on foreign-policy matters was a factor in the E.U.’s internal-weakness at the federal level, but Macron’s proper orientation was to contend that France should consider sanctioning Israel, if this had not already been done. Indeed, Macron said publicly on 30 May 2025 that France could harden its position on Israel. “The humanitarian blockade is creating a situation that is untenable on the ground,” he said.[5]

Yet two weeks later, Macron was visiting Greenland to represent Europe’s—not just France’s—objection to U.S. President Trump’s desire to make Greenland a U.S. territory. “The situation in Greenland is clearly a wakeup call for all Europeans,” he said as if he were president of the E.U. rather than the governor of an E.U. state.[6] This manner of situating the French president may seem harsh, but I submit that I have properly stated his role from the vantage point of the E.U. and particularly in terms of its federal system, wherein states are both qualitatively and quantitatively distinct from the federal level officials and governmental branches. Von der Leyen could have spoken for E.U. citizens rather than merely residents of the state of France were she to have visited Greenland, but Macron relegated such an opportunity for the E.U., and thus the collective clout that it potentially could have that a state could not. There is a cost, in other words, in a state official refusing to apply self-control when going into the spotlight is tempting. Were the U.S. president to try to invade Greenland, the E.U. president would have more economic clout than France could have with which to pressure Trump to cease and desist in his imperial designs.

This photo, from Euronews.com, illustrates Macron's usurption and how this impacts how the actual E.U. Commission president (pictured on the right) is viewed from abroad as compromised or weakened as a result..

Admittedly, involving state officials in foreign policy is arguably one way in which the E.U.’s federal system is a better case of federalism than the top-heavy American counterpart, but such involvement requires also giving E.U. officials, especially its (executive branch) president and foreign minister, enough authority with which to block state leaders from stealing the show on the societal stage. Although the U.S. had taken the doctrine of federal preemption of state action too far, some preemption would be justified in the E.U., especially as the governors do have a formal role even at the federal level in the European Council and through their ministers in the Council of Ministers on foreign policy. The proclivity to go beyond those federal institutions conflicts with the roles of the E.U. president and foreign minister in being able to lead the E.U. on foreign policy. A similar case of state overreach occurred when the prime minister of Italy sought to manipulate representatives in the European Parliament, which represents E.U. citizens rather than states.  Likewise, a governor of one of the republics in the U.S. can justifiably pressure a U.S. senator representing that governor’s state at the federal level, but the House representatives even in districts located in that state serve the U.S. citizens in those districts rather than the state government.

In short, political overreaching should be guarded against for a federal system to function optimally, such that benefits internationally from collective action at the federal level can be realized while the cultural and ideological interstate differences can be accommodated by there being policy domains retained by the state governments. Stealing the limelight of someone else is not conducive to a federal system being able to work both internally and as a political unit to the outside world. Put bluntly, if France’s Macron wants so to be president of the E.U., let him go through the process of candidacy at the end of Von der Leyen’s second term rather than usurp her role before then.

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1. Jeremy Fleming-Jones, “Europe Left on Diplomatic ‘Sidelines’ in Israel Iran Conflict,” Euronews.com, June 15, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Gavin Blackburn, “Macron on ‘Crusade against Jewish State,’ Israel Says Following Criticism of Gaza War,” Euronews.com, 30 May 2025.
5. Reuters, “France May Toughen Stance on Israel If It Continues Blocking Gaza Aid, Macron Says,” Reuters.com, May 30, 2025.
6. Emma De Ruiter, “Macron Reaffirms Support for Greenland during Visit Ahead of G7 Summit,” Euronews.com, 15 June, 2025.

Is Healthcare a Human Right?

Humanity still has not come to a consensus on what are entailed specifically within the rubric of human rights. Even in terms of those specifics that have come to be generally held to be human rights, such as in designated war crimes and crimes against humanity by international agreement, the lack of de jure and de facto enforcement render such agreement nugatory in practice. As a result, calls for human rights are in effect calls for warring to stop. The enforcement that goes along with laws legislated by governments render any consensus on what constitutes human rights more substantive in practice. This is undercut, however, in empire-scale polities of polities, such as the E.U. and U.S., to the extent that human rights are carved out at the federal level to applied across differing cultures. Such ideological diversity between the American member-states has triggered drastically-different notions of just what are included as human rights to be played out in Congress. The debate over the government-financed health-insurance program for the poor in 2025 illustrates such a lack of consensus, which in turn suggests that the member-states should play more of a role in how or even whether to provide free insurance to the poor. Sometimes, one size doesn’t fit all. In short, the matter of federalism is very relevant up front, before matters of the proper role of government itself and of human rights are decided. In other words, the qualitative and quantitative differences between a union of states and a state are very relevant up front, lest states eventually peel off in utter frustration with a one-size-fits-all approach to policy-making to fit an empire composed of member-states.

As the U.S. Senate considered changes to the Medicaid program, Republican Sen. Josh Hawley acknowledged “that the main cost-saving provision in the bill—new work requirements on able-bodied adults who receive health care through the Medicaid program—would cause millions of people to lose their coverage. All told, estimates are 10.9 million fewer people would have health coverage under the bill’s proposed changes to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act.”[1] Millions would be relegated to not getting medical attention or going to the emergency rooms of hospitals mandated to treat the uninsured, who would be strapped with unaffordable medical bills and thus bad credit-reports.

That a significant number of poor people in the United States would lose health-insurance was known and anticipated by the legislators. Speaking on the bill as it was taking shape in the U.S. Senate, Sen. Hawley said, “I know that will reduce the number of people on Medicaid.”[2] What, then, justifies the loss of health coverage? The senator answered this question by adding, “But I’m for that because I want people who are able bodied but not working to work.”[3] In other words, being able to have access to medical services should be conditional on having a job. The conditionality itself means that health care is not a human right because such rights are inherently unconditional.

Some or even many of Sen. Hawley’s constituents doubtless favored excluding medical services from being included among other human rights, perhaps in the belief that people who are able to work but refuse to work do not deserve to be kept alive if they fall sick, which in turn can be based on a belief that only the strong of any species should survive. Sen. Hawley represents Missouri, when is generally conservative. Sen. Warren of Massachusetts, on the other hand, would find that the conditionality and thus the exclusion of medical care from human rights much less popular in her member-state. Such a wide divide by state on this question would be unlikely in the E.U., even between the states of Hungary or Poland and Sweden or the Netherlands. The European notion of subsidiarity would thus be more applicable in this case to the U.S. than the E.U., given the greater diversity of ideology on the question in the United States. In other words, federalizing universal healthcare would come with less ideological tensions between E.U. citizens in different states than between U.S. citizens in different states; there was more consensus within the empire-scale European Union than within the American bloc.

The imposition of work requirements as a condition for the poor having access to medical treatments may be just fine with most people in Texas and Utah, for example, and yet be very objectionable to most people in Vermont and Connecticut. To conflate these various member-states as being ideologically and culturally homogenous is suboptimal and comes with political costs as opposition pressure is likely to result where the federal policy is unpopular; more optimal politically would be transferring the program of Medicaid to the member-states so their respective peoples could tailor the program—or even cancel it—according to their respective political ideologies. The notion that policy in another state should reflect one’s own views is anathema to federalism, and even to there being empire-scale unions of states. Toleration within a union is thus necessary lest one size be applied throughout and eventually republics break off in frustration, as Britain did from the European Union due primarily to anti-federalist sentiment.

In short, finding a large gap from consensus in Congress (or in the E.U.’s legislature) can be an indication that a policy question would be better resolved by the member-states than at the empire-level, given the heterogeneity between states on the question. Congress and the federal president applying work requirements on what most people in some states regard as an unconditional human right may be intolerable emotionally to those people, but so too, Obamacare had been viewed as an intolerable overreach of government to most people in some other states. Behind this chasm, ideological and thus as emotional as cognitive, lies a basic disagreement on just what should constitute human rights, and thus be an obligation of government. In other words, besides different political philosophies of the proper role of government, different moral principles are involved on the question of whether government should pay for healthcare for the poor. In a federal system, the matter of where such a divisive policy question should be decided should be decided before both the proper-role-of-government and the human-rights questions are decided, or else the federal system itself would be compromised and thus put at risk.

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1. Leah Askarinam, “The GOP’s Big Bill Would Bring Changes to Medicaid for Millions,” Apnews.com, June 15, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.

A U.S. Senator Thrown to the Ground: Security on Steroids

A U.S. Senator being thrown to the ground and handcuffed rather than escorted out of the building because he asked a difficult question for the speaker holding a news conference illustrates not only the bias towards using excessive force that having police power lavishes on human nature, but also a proclivity toward excessiveness without any internal mental check that is entwined in virtually any human brain. That the primary arresting FBI employee was the only person in the room wearing a bulletproof vest inside the federal (government) building may also reveal his penchant for exaggeration—or, going too far without realizing it. The prescription in terms of public policy is a strengthening of checks on law-enforcement employees even, if possible, by embedding other municipal (or federal) employees whose sole function it is to evaluate police conduct either by listening in or observing even in real time. A U.S. senator being thrown to the ground and handcuffed in a federal building in California rather than escorted out of the building evinces a power-trip more base, violent, and primitive than the typical power-trips that occur on the “floor” of the U.S. Senate. It must have been a shock to U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla on June 12, 2025 to be physically shoved to the ground, especially if the rationale for his removal from the press conference was itself an exaggeration.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was holding a news conference in early June, 2025 as protests against the arrests of illegal aliens were going on outside in downtown Los Angeles in California, when U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla said, “I have questions for the secretary!”[1] Even if the senator was trying to visibly score political points with his constituents by interjecting, which, by the way, would be in the realm of the sort of power-trip that is quite common in politics, the reaction of the Trump Administration may point to a trumped up political reason for the violent way in which the senator was manhandled by Secret Service employees and then the FBI agent. The White House accused Padilla of “disrespectful political theatre” and Noem herself accused the senator of having ‘made a scene.”[2] If these opinions were behind the manhandling of the senator, then “criminalizing politics” steeped to a new low: instant violence against the elected representative for being political. The violence itself is much worse than merely charging someone for being political in a way that offends someone else in power.

For its part, the Secret Service lied that Padilla had “lunged at Secretary Noem,” and furthermore that the agents there “thought he was an attacker.”[3] Reviewing the video of the event shows the willingness of people with guns to lie to protect themselves, which I contend is reason enough for additional checks on law-enforcement employees, whether federal or state. That the senator, the most senior Democrat on the U.S. Senate’s Border Security and Immigration subcommittee, announced repeatedly that he was a U.S. Senator belies the credibility of the claim that he was thought to be an attacker.

California’s Gavin Newsom, head of state, chief executive, and commander-in-chief of California’s National Guard (i.e., army) wrote online a poignant point worthy of our consideration: “If they can handcuff a US Senator for asking a question, imagine what they will do to you.”[4] Unfortunately, it doesn’t take much imagining to consider the actuality of employees of a government in law enforcement presuming that the law is theirs to make in real time—casting a blind eye intentionally on the actual law—and lying and threatening even victims of a crime with arrest should they object. Enforcing existing law does not give a government employee the discretion with which to ignore the law and even come up with one’s own law and yet how easy it is simply to ignore this vital point in the carrying out of one’s “duties.” I have witnessed this mentality enough to know that it is too common to ignore, and thus I contend that more checks are needed on law-enforcement employees on the non-supervisory level locally, at the member-state level, and at the federal level in the United States. The problem is worse “on the ground” than has reached the public air-waves.

Even if Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, was right in opining, “Padilla embarrassed himself and his constituents with this immature, theatre-kid stunt” because “he wanted attention,”[5] treating the senator as if he were an attacker rather than simply escorting him out of the building—or even letting him remain and treat the altercation between him and Noem as political—reveals an emotionally jejune, hyper-“trigger-happy” mentality among the Secret Service and FBI employees in that federal building. Such a mentality among government employees who have been given the legal right to use force is, I submit, dangerous, and thus should be exculpated from the ranks of law enforcement in any jurisdiction, lest the trend eventuate in people being surrounded by security simply for being angry and even raising one’s voice at a political event. Treating such as a threat is itself passive-aggressive, which as we have seen can turn outright aggressive given the human, all too human proclivity to go to far. 

Put more plainly, assuming that lies used to cover-up the underlying mental ailment, Secret Service employees who perceived the senator lunge at Noem and thought Padilla was an attacker should be put on mental-health leave so they can relax and untighten, and be subjected to psychological tests on latent aggression, for their sort of power-trip is much more dangerous than that which goes on in the U.S. Senate—and the White House, for this incident is but a glimpse toward a realization that not enough had been done even in multiple jurisdictions to root out the sordid pathology from the field of law-enforcement. De facto absolute power “on the ground” loves a vacuum of accountability, and is even willing to lie to keep it at bay.

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1. Ali Abbas Ahmadi and Kwasi G. Asiedu, “US Senator Dragged Out of LA News Conference and Handcuffed,” BBC.com, June 13, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.

RBI Overheating India’s Economy: On Materialist Greed Fueling Ceaseless Consumerism

A phenomenon as massive as the global coronavirus pandemic, which ran from 2020 to 2022, is bound to have major economic ripple, or wave, effects in its wake. India’s record high 9.2% growth of GNP in the 2023-2024 fiscal year illustrates the robust thrust of pent-up demand met with increased supply. To the extent that consumption over savings is the norm in any economy, a couple years off can subtly recalibrate economic mentalities to a more prudent economic mindset wherein saving money is not so dwarfed by spending it. Moreover, putting the brakes on a consumerist routine and societal norm can theoretically lead to putting the underlying materialism in a relative rather than an absolute position and thus in perspective. Yet such a “resetting” must overcome the knee-jerk instinct of any habit to restart as if there had been no change. Coming back to college, for example, after a summer away, students tend to pick up their respective routines right away as if the recent summer were a distant memory. India’s astonishing rate of economic growth just after the pandemic demonstrates that the penchant for consumerism and economic growth as a maximizing rather than satisficing variable returned as if the steeds in Socrates’ Symposium—only those horses represent garden-variety eros sublimated to love of eternal moral verities, to which Augustine substituted “God.”

The full essay is at "RBI Overheating India's Economy."

Musk vs. Trump: American Business and Government at Loggerheads?

When the wealthiest person in the world and the President of the United States cross swords, people are bound to notice. Such a very public clash between billionaires, one of whom is the most politically powerful person in the U.S., should not lead the rest of us to infer that the interests of large corporations and the U.S. Government, including the respective executives and elected representatives, typically conflict. Corporate and individual mega-donations to political campaigns, the proverbial “revolving door” between working in government and at a corporation, the reliance of regulatory agencies on information from the regulated companies invite the exploit of conflicts of interest such that legislation and regulations are even written by corporate lawyers for their respective companies’ financial interest. Furthermore, that many very large American-based corporations have interlocking boards of directors gives corporate America considerable unified force in seeing to it that Congress and the federal president remain friendly to business interests. That both benefit from the status quo and have de jure or de facto vetoes of reform proposals reinforces the staying power of the club. Even as U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders enjoyed considerable media attention and crowds in his speaking tour against oligopoly (i.e., consolidation within an industry such that companies can set prices at will and can thus extract extra profit beyond that which would accrue in a competitive market), it would be wildly optimistic to hope for an onslaught of anti-trust enforcement from a Republican or Democratic administration.

Even though U.S. President Trump claimed in early June, 2025, that he had told Elon Musk to leave the Administration because Musk was “wearing thin,” and Secretary of State Rubio would doubtless attest to that, it should not be forgotten that Musk had spent more than $250 million “helping President Donald Trump win a second White House term.”[1] Musk “also spent more than $19 million in the final weeks of the 2024 election cycle to help Republicans win narrow majorities in Congress.”[2] Even though Musk was the richest person in the world at the time, to spend so much money and yet be inattentive to how his companies could benefit from government contracts and electric-car subsidies defies human nature. Indeed, even though Musk denied opposing Trump’s tax and government spending “Big Beautiful Bill” because of the cuts to EV subsidies, Trump had a point that the negative financial impact on Tesla was not a point in the bill’s favor to Musk. To be sure, Musk’s complaint about too much “pork” and thus deficit spending being major problems in the bill that the U.S. House had recently passed by a single vote is valid. Nevertheless, lest it be assumed that a dispute on public policy between two billionaires is in the interest of the poor and middle-class, Musk registered no complaint about the cuts to Medicaid, which finances healthcare for the poor who cannot afford private health-insurance, and food assistance for the poor.

Even in the midst of an argument between billionaires in business and government, we cannot assume that the conflict of political-economic interests among the elite results in the enactment of public policy that is in the public interest. In Trump’s bill, for example, even though less money would subsidize electric vehicles, there were no reductions of subsidies in the bill that passed the House for coal and oil companies. The grip of those companies in Congress and the Trump Administration could be assumed to be tight in spite of the global average temperature having reached 1.5C degrees, which the Paris Accord of 2016 set as a threshold. The cozy relationship amid climate change puts in stark relief the distinction between private interests and the public interest.

When asked at the Qatar Economic Forum in 2025 whether he would continue making political donations as he had in 2024, Musk replied, “I think I’ve done enough.”[3] It should not be missed that he added, “Well, if I see a reason to do political spending in the future, I will do it.”[4] It would be of value to the American political economy if he would do contribute to political campaigns aimed at breaking up the cosy relationship that CEO’s and (and the corporations) have with elected officials and regulators at both the state and federal systems of government in the U.S.; by “breaking up,” I mean something more substantial and structural than barring government officials and employees from being hired by corporations that have benefitted from the work of the officials and employees.

Instead, I recommend a return to competitive markets and even possibly limiting political-campaign contributions of corporations and the ultra-rich, for the financial influence of large concentrations of wealth on elected officials and appointees tilts the political economy away from being oriented to the public interest, which is not arrived at by the entanglement of certain powerful private interests. To be sure, going so far as trying to eliminate the gravitas of wealth politically would be utopian and thus a fool’s errand, but public policy could be formulated and enacted that is aimed at reversing or countering at least some of the self-interested tilt of the American political economy that so benefits members of the club—Trump and Musk included. Nor is Socialism necessarily the answer to protecting the poor and middle-class from the self-interested endeavors of the interlaced economic and political elites, for Adam Smith’s invisible hand can do wonders to regulate price if only competition is restored to oligopolistic industries, which includes even social-media companies.

Trump’s threat to cut off Musk’s SpaceX from government contracts and Musk’s acknowledgement that he might make sizable political donations even though he was disappointed in Trump’s bill for its pork and probable significant addition to the U.S. federal debt indicate that politicians have considerable discretion being able to benefit companies financially and that CEO’s can make use of such discretion by legally paying off political candidates and those office-holders who are up for re-election and would all too easy exploit a personal conflict of interest by bending public duty to private campaign-interest. Using ambition to check ambition is part of the genius of the American political system of checks and balances, but as the ambitions are solely among the wealthy, it cannot be assumed that the public interest is necessarily being served by the resulting public policies, for collusion even between contending ambitions does indeed exist even if the publicly-aired arguments among the elite of the political economy are more titillating.

1. Kevin Breuninger, “Elon Musk Says He Will Spend ‘A Lot Less’ on Future Campaign Donations,” CNBC.com, May 20, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.

The U.S. Government’s Debt: Federalism Unbalanced

On May 5, 2025, the debt of the U.S. Government stood at $36.21 trillion, $28.9 trillion being held by the public and $7.31 trillion being intragovernmental. That total is $1.66 trillion more than the total federal public debt on May 5, 2024. Projected interest payments of $952 billion in fiscal year 2025 would be 8 percent higher than the interest payments made in 2024. By comparison, the U.S. budget for national defense in fiscal year 2025 totaled $892.6 billion. Whether going to investors of treasury bonds or defense contractors and other corporations, the combined $1.85 trillion for fiscal 2025 represents a transfer payment to the wealthy from American taxpayers rich, middle-class, and poor. Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill in May, 2025 that would subject Medicaid and food assistance to significantly less money and subject the States with having to spend more on the administration of those programs. Principles of political ideology reside just below the surface. My task here is to flush them out and relate them to each other, rather than to impose my own ideology.

Fresh out of the Trump Administration, billionaire Elon Musk called the tax and spending bill a “disgusting abomination.”[1] Presumably this condemnation has to do with the “multi-trillion tax breaks” and the raising of the debt ceiling an additional $4 trillion, but the CEO of SpaceX would hardly object to the increase for defense.[2] Musk wrote that the “outrageous, pork-filled” bill would “massively increase the already gigantic budget deficit to $2.5 trillion” in spite of the cuts to healthcare and food for the poor that Musk supported.[3] U.S. Sen. Rand Paul promised to vote against the bill unless the debt ceiling would not be raised.

As of early June, 2025, who could say whether Republican opposition in the U.S. Senate would actually materialize beyond the rhetoric designed to give an impression of objection to voters back home. The Republican lawmakers in the House had quickly closed ranks to pass the House bill. Behind the numbers are values and ideological principles that can be difficult to see. Cutting federal programs that help the poor with subsistence living, such as with food and healthcare, can be said to imply a lack of compassion, especially if defense contractors would be getting more business from the federal government, but two political principles are also in play.

One is the belief that the role of government should not include providing even the basics to people; charities and families should supply basic needs to the poor. Overlaid with that principle is one concerning American federalism, wherein the federal government was originally intended to have very limited powers, and one way of limiting them was to make regulating interstate commerce and providing a common defense primary, with other domains of power being handled by the States. This principle is in accord with the differences between States in an empire-scale federal union of states because the state governments can more tightly match social programs with the political ideology of a majority of the voters in a state than can be done by Congress.

These two principles—the first being more general and the second more particular to the American federal philosophy—are not fully consistent, for according to the federal principle, Congress should take care that the state governments are not crowded out in taxing more so as to take on more in domestic programs—domestic being here within a given state. Whereas the view that the proper roles of government do not include making goods and services available to citizens applies to the States too, the principle of federalism favors expanding the taxing and spending abilities of the States according to how much of an entitlement-providing responsibility each state government wants, as per the relevant political ideology of the majority of the citizens of a state.

Re-balancing American federalism so the States regain some of authority that they once had should include managing the transition especially concerning programs relied on by the poor because they are vulnerable to suffering and even dying by slipping between the cracks. Relatedly, because in at least some of the several States, the majority of people believe that government should supply the poor with necessities, the more general political principle that government itself should not supply goods and services to individual citizens should give way to the second, federal principle. Put another way, were Congress to vote to restrict government itself, then more expansive ideologies in at least some States would be choked off. The general government principle should be decided therefore on the state level rather than by Congress.

Taking a page from the E.U., the U.S. member-states could conceivably be given more responsibility in funding defense beyond just militias, which are armies that the U.S. President can borrow. Not that the head of state of California should step over the federal president on defense policy as Macron of the E.U. state of France did in trying to head the E.U.’s defense policy against Russia in 2025. The defense budget of the U.S. Government could be reduced and the states could do more without the latter superseding the former. Together with transferring more non-interstate-commerce domestic programs to the states, the federal deficits could be reduced. President Reagan failed to rebalance American federalism because he favored the more general restrictive-government-role principle and thus did not facilitate states making up for federal cuts in domestic spending. To be sure, the state governments would have done so to various extents, given their distinct political climates.

Restoring power to the member-states heeds the fact that over a continent and beyond, one size (of public policy) does not fit all (States). Curtailing both federal defense and domestic spending while reducing federal taxation by less than the combined cuts but enough that state taxing abilities would no longer be crowded out from expanding to meet the incoming transfer of programs would put the federal government on the road to fiscal responsibility—meaning being able at some point to pay off its debt—while giving the state governments back more of the authority they had when the federal system was designed and put into operation. The horrendous fiscal imbalance of the U.S. (federal) Government can be interpreted as pointing, in effect, to how imbalanced the federal system itself has become. No one at the U.S. Constitutional Convention envisioned the federal level as handling everything of substance while the state governments become like municipal governments, so it should be no surprise that such a lack of fit would be reflected in a massive fiscal imbalance on the federal level.

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1. Bernd Debusmann, “Musk Calls Trump’s Tax Bill a ‘Disgusting Abomination’,” BBC.com, June 3, 2025.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.