First Scotland, Then Catalonia. And Now? Milan and Venice These fractures are driven by people in these regions paying what they see as an unfair amount of the nation's total tax burden. The productive are complaining about being forced to drive down their standard of living to raise the standard of living of far less productive people in other regions of the nation. More below. The US devised a system initially which avoided this problem, but since the early 20th century, we have moved to shift most responsibility and government payments from the states to the federal government which has created this same problem here in the US. Many of our Constitutional Amendments authored since the Bill of Rights have been destructive. The 17th Amendment move from states appointing Senators to the state's voters directly electing Senators, with the ability to sit for re-election. The 16th Amendment allowed the federal government to levy an income tax directly on the people of the nation.
The income tax obviously allowed the federal government to rapidly expand its budget and usurp responsibilities held by the states. The direct election of Senators converted the Senate from an entity filled with people who were immune to campaign finance "vote buying" since they were not elected by the electorate and could not be re-elected by the voters and made them identical in this regard to the Representatives. This converted the federal legislature from a body one-half of which was subject to the pressure of individuals, lobbyists, and influence groups and one-half which was subject to demands from the states legislatures to an entity in which all were subject to these individuals, lobbyists, and influence groups. While we watch the slow dissolution of the European Union, we too suffer from similar internal problems which if unaddressed will cause our own dissolution. The cure is to return to the original Constitutional arrangement, return rights to the states which have been usurped by the federal government and strictly limit the politician's ability to behave irrationally in the future. While Europe needs to follow the same process, and build more independent "states" with smaller less intrusive national governments, they have no history of allowing people/states to have more rights. It seems doubtful that Europe can do what is necessary, and if they do not, it is likely that Europe will disintegrate from the large nation states which comprise Europe today into smaller nations. People want to feel they have control over things that matter to them in the political sphere. Limiting the federal government to a small number of specific duties as the US Constitution did until the 20th century allows the states to control more of the political sphere which gives individuals more control. To the extent that the individual disagrees with how a state acts, the individual can work to change the actions of the state, or he can move to a state which already operates in a way the individual approves. Thus reducing the pressures within the union.
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