JOE BIDEN, HAVE YOU HEARD OF FREDERIC BASTIAT?

I sensed, a few years ago, that Donald Trump might have.

Our [then] President might be toying with changing the way in which the federal government pays for internal improvements.  The Interstate Highway system, for instance, required the states to put up ten percent of the money for construction, while the other ninety percent went through Washington.  The states remained on the hook for policing and snow removal, as well as maintenance, and, not surprisingly, we ended up with potentially more mileage than the states could maintain, and, from time to time, new federal appropriations to make good on the repairs.  That's not the only way in which states get inefficiently much road capacity.

Propose, though, that the states take more ownership of their roads, and let the cries rise up to Heaven.

The current president might have no knowledge of political economy, but in his speech from the throne he surely understands politicians and their posturing.

These projects will put hundreds of thousands of people to work rebuilding our highways, bridges, railroads, tunnels, ports and airports, clean water, and high-speed internet across America.

Urban. Suburban. Rural. Tribal.

And we’re just getting started. I sincerely thank my Republican friends who voted for the law.

And to my Republican friends who voted against it but still ask to fund projects in their districts, don’t worry.

I promised to be the president for all Americans.

We’ll fund your projects. And I’ll see you at the ground-breaking.

More precisely, printed money from Uncle Sugar will pay to build the projects, and Washington politicians will turn up at the photo opportunities, but it will be local public officials, years on, who will have to maintain them.  "I wonder if there's a way to sell more widespread road tolling as a way to provide property tax relief, since in much of the country that old Monopoly hazard, being assessed for street repairs, is still part of the town budget."  Predictably, the speech acknowledged those workers who would soon be drawing paychecks building the  projects that were in the appropriations.  People in neighborhoods not favored thus?  "The alternative to assessing the residents for street repairs is hoping that there will be another transportation porkulus and that your Member of Congress has enough juice to put your broken road into the list of projects.  'All that the periodic porkulus bills do is prolong the fiction that somehow we can rob from Peoria to fix Pittsburgh, while we rob Pittsburgh to fix Peoria.'"

In addition, that money comes with strings attached.  Want that highway money?  Enforce a 55 mph speed limit on the interstates.  Register eighteen-year-olds for Selective Service, but don't you dare let them buy adult beverages.  Give up an appropriation for improving Passenger Rail service?  "The incoming governors of Ohio and Wisconsin would both like the money allocated for rail infrastructure improvements to go to roads instead."  Sorry, no, but think carefully about why you turned down the money.  Federal money pays for tracks and trains, but Ohio or Wisconsin didn't want to be on the hook for the operating subsidies.  Are those roads and highway bridges any different?

If it's Washington's money, it always comes with conditions.  Now comes Tennessee's general assembly, considering saying no to federal education aid.  "There’s tests that the federal government passes down that force the teachers to do some tests in the classroom that they don’t think measures anything, that they don’t like doing."  There might be culture war dimensions to that proposal as well.

Tennessee, it’s worth noting, has a Senate with 27 Republicans and six Democrats and a General Assembly with 73 Republicans and 26 Democrats. Passage of such legislation in some form shouldn’t be overly difficult.

This could constitute the beginning of an epidemic, in which red states reject what many believe is serious unconstitutional overreach by the federal government in education and many other areas.

Such things are being examined actively in Tennessee as the state’s attorney general, Jonathan Skrmetti, explained at a luncheon of the Nashville Republican Women on Feb. 8. Skrmetti is forming a task force of lawyers potentially to sue the federal government over this overreach and possible attendant violations of the 10th Amendment.

[Tennessee house speaker Cameron] Sexton, for his part, seems to be responding to an increasingly militant grassroots in his party that has been augmented by the great inflow of refugees (political migrants), many of whom are surprisingly activist, to Tennessee from blue states.

They have been demanding reforms in a system that has been infiltrated by critical race theory and also various versions of age-inappropriate sexual education. While these refugees had come to Tennessee to escape such things in blue states, they were deeply disappointed to find that at least in terms of the schools, they were running to stay in place, in great degree due to federal intervention.

This legislation, if it goes forward, will be a significant step in the right direction.

It also could be a baby step, possibly more, toward the rebirth of the federalism intended by the Founders. In the current environment, the only way that could happen would be via the states. The proper word, figuratively and literally, for the federal government is metastasis.

It's encouraging that people fleeing the Democrat-run states with their corona tyranny and Weimar values are not interested in bringing those policies with them, and that they've come to appreciate the value of enumerated, divided, and limited powers.  Now if a state legislature saw the wisdom of turning down that highway money in order to regain control of its drinking age and whatever else comes bundled with those appropriations.