By Willow (willowashmaple.sbs)
Aug. 5, 2025
In spite of the U.S. Constitution's separation of powers between Congress and several States, and the Tenth Amendment guarantee of state sovereignty, the federal government wields extraordinary power over the conduct and policies of state and local governments.
The progressives are beginning to discover this in the Trump presidency.
Many people do not realize the pervasive encroachment of federal politics into their communities. Their neighborhood schools, community non-profits, town libraries, road maintenance crews, and in some cases, even faith-based charities are controlled by the White House and the whims of distant D.C. politicians.
This tyrannical control is made possible through a huge legal loophole: federal grantmaking authority.
The president of the United States, members of Congress, cabinet secretaries and other political appointees, and bureaucrats exercise unconstitutional control over local and state affairs by promulgating executive orders and administrative regulations that tie federal funding of state and local grantees (and their subrecipients, which could include non-profit organizations) to a set of conditions.
Perhaps two of the best-known historical examples of this are the 55-miles-per-hour speed limits on freeways (which have since been repealed) and the legal drinking age at 21. Both of these were conditions for federal highway grants, and all states and territories were forced to change their laws and regulations so as not to forfeit critical and necessary funding.
During a Democratic presidency, such conditions could include various DEI and anti-discrimination requirements, or environmental and sustainability requirements.
Now, with a Republican in power, federal grants are contingent on the "anti-DEI" and "anti-gender ideology" compliance, religious liberty requirements, and grantees' denial of service to "illegal aliens" and full cooperation with the mass deportation program.
Regardless of which party controls the White House, such requirements encroach and abridge the sovereign rights of the states and the democratic will of the people to control their local affairs in keeping with their specific local conditions and communal values.
To stop this cycle of tyranny, it is incumbent upon Congress to remove this tool of politicization entirely. To this end, federal grant programs and congressional appropriations for specific projects should be replaced with a single, no-strings-attached block grant to states based on population, area size, and/or state GDP. In other words, each year, every state and territory receives a lump sum of money that is its share of the federal revenue (minus congressionally appropriated expenditure for constitutionally required federal government functions such as defense and diplomacy) without any precondition. Then let the state legislatures decide what to do with it, based on their needs and the will of the people there.
Eventually, this could go one step further and eliminate federal direct taxation of U.S. persons, shifting the responsibilities of raising revenue to several states. Congress could then fund constitutional roles of the federal government from tariffs, various excise taxes, and maybe assessments on a percentage of state revenues.
Devolution and decentralization, based on the ideas of subsidiarity and local control, can go a long way to solve the problem of chronically acrimonious and polarized American politics. Bring the power back to where it is accessible to the everyday people.
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