For example, the intended purpose of the US Senate was to represent the interests of the states in the federal government and US Senators were originally elected by the state legislatures. Then US Senators would generally oppose federal spending because federal taxes and state taxes come out of the same pockets and the state legislators electing the federal Senators would rather choose how to spend the money themselves. It's not a coincidence that federal spending permanently exploded almost immediately after the passage of the 17th amendment.
But if you keep spending programs at the state level then the states have to compete with each other. If one state has high taxes and is blowing the money on corrupt boondoggles and another either has lower taxes or is spending the money on things that actually benefit the public, people and businesses move to the less corrupt state and the more corrupt state gets punished with a smaller tax base.
They likewise have to compete on the basis of regulatory efficiency, which is why federal regulations were originally intended to be limited to things directly impacting interstate and international activity. But we broke that too and now we've got a bit of a mess.
For example, the intended purpose of the US Senate was to represent the interests of the states in the federal government and US Senators were originally elected by the state legislatures. Then US Senators would generally oppose federal spending because federal taxes and state taxes come out of the same pockets and the state legislators electing the federal Senators would rather choose how to spend the money themselves. It's not a coincidence that federal spending permanently exploded almost immediately after the passage of the 17th amendment.
But if you keep spending programs at the state level then the states have to compete with each other. If one state has high taxes and is blowing the money on corrupt boondoggles and another either has lower taxes or is spending the money on things that actually benefit the public, people and businesses move to the less corrupt state and the more corrupt state gets punished with a smaller tax base.
They likewise have to compete on the basis of regulatory efficiency, which is why federal regulations were originally intended to be limited to things directly impacting interstate and international activity. But we broke that too and now we've got a bit of a mess.