The principle of breaking up the Federal Government and turning programs over to the states is a good one. The problem, alas, is that state governments are corrupt, too. The Corpstate is everywhere.
And yet all the Republican presidential candidates think it would be a good idea to hand some of Washington’s most important programs to state governments, which so often combine corruptibility with incompetence. In a speech on Monday, Mitt Romney said he would dump onto the states most federal anti-poverty programs, including Medicaid, food stamps and housing assistance, because states know best what their local needs are.
States, however, generally have a poor record of taking care of their neediest citizens, and could not be relied on to maintain lifeline programs like food stamps if Washington just wrote them checks and stopped paying attention. In many states, newspapers and broadcasters have cut their statehouse coverage, reducing scrutiny of government’s effectiveness and integrity.
Truth and Traditions 
Common sense and much history of corruption and waste suggest that the closer to home the better the accountability. I’m refusing to pay my Federal taxes because about half of each tax dollar goes for past, present and future undeclared, immoral, illegal, totally counterproductive and wastefull wars. But I’m also very skeptical that a Federal department of education knows better than the State department of education knows better than the county supervisor knows better than the local superintendent knows better than the teacher in the classroom knows better than the kid with the question at hand. All those layers of bureaucracy and authority can blame each other endlessly for the dangerous decline in the quality of education at all levels while the kid doesn’t even bother to ask a question after 2nd or third grade. The kid just hopes it won’t be on the test that everyone is teaching to . . . . . . .
Clean air and quality of ocean water and coral reefs, etc. need a Global Organization Of Democracies that functions well, can be held accountable.
Maintaining borders? Inspecting imports? Collecting customs? What do we need a Federal government for? To balance a modest budget that takes care of issues not easily managed at the local, or, if necessary, the county or state level. Make a list. Check it twice.
Elect only representatives dedicated to the Oath of Office, i.e. preserving the US Constitution, you know, the document currently in tatters and about to become a dead letter thanks to a corporate owned Executive, Congress and Supreme Court.