Is the Biden administration deliberately trying to undermine the fifty States?

 

According to an article at Wirepoints, titled "Mass Federalization: How Washington is Bailing Out Failed States, Decapitating Competitive Ones and Ending America As You Knew It", it looks that way.  Bold, underlined text is my emphasis.

An astonishingly sweeping, radical movement to level cities and states is underway, propping up the failures and pounding down those that have been successful. Most everything is being federalized. The role of cities and states as we have known them – as laboratories of democracy – is being eviscerated. It’s being financed by both the United States Treasury and the Federal Reserve bank, which are now joined at the hip in fiscal profligacy.

Much of it is proceeding under the false labels of pandemic relief and fiscal stimulus. It’s happening at such a rapid pace that the paper of record for government overreach, The Washington Post, fears that “the sheer volume of new programs threatens to swamp federal agencies.”

It’s a fundamental and historic remake of America, though its impact hasn’t yet come close to sinking in. Some of the numbers that follow seem beyond belief, but they are real. If claiming that pending legislation will destroy America as you know it seems like exaggeration, read on to see what its supporters say, because it’s their commentary that is most revealing.

The plan to federalize government is already moving and has three parts:

• Flood every unit of local government with federal cash, irrespective of need, while prohibiting tax cuts, thereby bailing out failing states and cities.
• Make that flood of federal money made regular and permanent.
• Annul or override state laws that make certain states competitive, thereby eliminating their competitive advantages, and federalize elections to make it all permanent.

. . .

Start with the recently signed ARP, the American Rescue Plan. Its scope is under-reported and the public is unaware. Having been routinely styled as coronavirus relief or economic stimulus, it’s perhaps the most blatant bait-and-switch in American history ... But ARP together with federal money already delivered is about $6 trillion! Even if you want to count everything, the bailout total is 7.7x the size of the problem [caused by COVID-19], wrote Stockman.

Don’t think that might ease your state and local tax burden. The downpour of cash on cities and states, most of which don’t need it, is all tied to a provision in ARP that bans tax cuts. It’s a mandate for statism – big government – whether states with small government philosophies like it or not.

“Thou shalt be statists and big spenders,” that’s what ARP might as well say as a direct federal mandate.

. . .

K-12 education, higher education, welfare programs, reparations and more – it’s all to be federalized and made permanent, subject to federal rules ... Based only on the things Democrats have said they want to make permanent, the total cost of ARP would, over ten years, reach $4.1 trillion with interest, according to the Committee for a Responsible Budget.

Bailing out public pensions would add more to the bill, and that’s in the cards, too.

. . .

Keep taxing and spending as you have been – that’s the universal mandate under ARP – then also spend the cash the federal government is dropping like manna from heaven. Today’s well-run states will thereby loose much of their competitive advantage.

Additional pending federal legislation specifically aims to deprive thriving states of what has given them comparatively advantage.

First, there’s the what the Wall Street Journal called the most radical pro-union labor bill since the 1935, which would erase right-to-work laws in 27 states.

A federal gun control law has already passed the House.

Finally, and most importantly, there’s perhaps the most pernicious bill proposed in modern history: H.R. 1, the “For the People Act.”

It would strip state governments and local election boards of power to run our elections, federalizing the election process. It would mandate same-day and automatic voter registration, and encourage vote trafficking of absentee ballots. It would be the end of voter ID laws and restrict efforts to verify voter registration lists. It would create a public funding program for candidates running for Congress. It would put new regulations on political speech and activity, by activists, candidates, civic groups, corporations and nonprofit organizations. Membership in organizations the left doesn’t like would be disclosed, leading to harassment and intimidation.

. . .

The average American is no doubt unaware of how extreme all of this is, and how quickly it is moving ... Make no mistake about the historical gravity of what is taking place. States as the laboratories of democracy are being shut down and replaced with a national juggernaut more overbearing than most Americans have ever imagined.

There's more at the link.

I wish this article were alarmist . . . but it's not.  Every fact I've checked from it has been confirmed.  I invite you to do so for yourself, if you wish.  This really is a deliberate, planned effort to federalize the United States, so that it no longer matters whether the states are united or not - they'll just be minor appendages to the Union, of no further political significance.

Needless to say, this is also a deliberate effort to destroy the structure that our Founding Fathers put in place.

All I can say is, we have to fight this at every turn.  It matters not whether Congress passes laws to that effect and the President signs them.  We need to elect State governments that will fight them tooth and nail in the court system, and if that isn't enough, they'll flatly refuse to cooperate and insist that their constitutional rights and privileges be respected.

If we, and the States, don't do that, then the United States of America will effectively be turned into the Union of Soviet Socialist States of America.  May God preserve us from that!

Peter