I have been toying with the idea that our modern form of federal government has expanded its power beyond its ability to make good governing decisions on several issues that used to be the responsibility of states. One of the key problems at the federal level is the disconnect between tax revenue and government benefits. It is natural to expect that if spending limits are not placed on federal politicians, they will take advantage of the situation to expand benefits. As a result programs such as Social Security and Medicare which started out with good financial intentions quickly degraded into programs that were dependent on the next generation to pay the bill. It was inevitable that these programs would run into a population mismatch between the group receiving the benefits and the group paying the bill. Asking the next generation to pay for the politically sound but financially stupid management of these programs is not really feasible. This is a lousy way to run a program but is the natural result of deficit spending at the federal level. If we cannot institute spending controls at the federal level, it makes sense to transfer control of these programs to the state level where balancing the budget and spending controls is a more familiar practice.
The modern administrative state is a behemoth incompatible with the rule of law.