If you listened to Republican Governors John Kasich and Chris Christie. as well as former Governor Jeb Bush, you would think that Ohio, New Jersey and Florida are knocking on the door of heaven on earth. All these states have eliminated terrible deficits and are swimming in financial surpluses. Small businesses are free of regulations, families have choices of schools and, well, to quote Garrison Keillor, “all the children are above average.” They’re also shouting from the mountaintop in Michigan, where Governor Rick Snyder has eliminated the deficit and created a $2 billion government surplus.

These governors should get frequent flyer miles and use the to visit a place or two in their states. I know Rick Snyder has the coin to go the 52 miles from the capital—Lansing–Flint. He’s been to Flint in recent months, but if you listened to him talk, you wouldn’t know it.

Here’s a simple question: “Does a miracle leave residue?” If you live in Flint, MI, you’re right in the middle of one of the many dung piles in what is affectionately called “the Great Lakes State.” Somehow, the state surplus occurred without remembering to continue to provide the city of Flint with clean, fresh water from Lake Huron, rather than the industrial backwash of the Flint River.

Has John Kasich of Ohio been to the Hough neighborhood of Cleveland lately? And to Chris Christie of New Jersey, have you come up with any new ideas for how to improve the traffic flow from New Jersey to Manhattan over the George Washington Bridge? And to Jeb Bush, how do you feel about that 29% poverty rate in Miami? And if you cross Biscayne Bay to Miami Beach, is it possible that climate change might have anything to do with why your shoes are always getting soaked on Collins Avenue?

If our 50 states were ever “laboratories of democracy,” they have now become laboratories on how to undermine democracy. Kasich’s Ohio and Bush’s Florida are among the leading states in making it more difficult for citizens to exercise their American right to vote. And how is democracy working in terms of providing health care for the poor? In one of the greatest domestic miscalculations of the 1960s, Medicaid administration was turned over to the states. Now 22 states, all with either with a Republican governor or a Republican-controlled legislature, have refused essentially “free” federal money to provide necessary care and services to the poor. That’s something that even Donald Trump has said would not happen in his plan “to make America great again.”

Yes, the states came first, just as the Lords came first to the British Parliament. But each is an anachronism. The Brits have wisely made the House of Lords ceremonial and left the business of governing to the House of Commons.

That’s what we should do in the United States with our thoroughly disunited states. Just as the “Lords” in Britain have little tasks to keep them busy, we could keep the states in tact enough so that they don’t have total identity crises. They could continue to be the sites of major universities bearing their names; they could continue to have birds and songs that have historically represented them. They could even remain on maps.

But the federal government must be the only protector of human rights; states could no longer erode them. America’s metropolitan areas could be governed by jurisdictions that actually reflect where people live and work.

Yes, this cannot happen overnight. But put the idea of sending states out to pasture on the list of ideas that should be presented for consideration to today’s and tomorrow’s students. Perhaps in 25 or 50 years, we can actually move in that direction. In the meantime, you might want to use a little caution, even hesitation, when hearing Republican governors brag about their states.

Oh, and lest I forget, I will continue to be thankful to the legion of progressive Democrats in state legislators who keep fighting the erosion of our rights and economic fairness. I’d love to see some of you run for Congress!

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The current conflict regarding FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency) is essentially about whether the federal government should have primary responsibility for addressing disasters, or whether the states, localities, and private organizations should handle these issues. If any disaster demonstrates why FEMA needs to continue to exist in its present form as a federal agency, Hurricane Sandy is it. This disaster hit a dozen states. All of them border at least one other state that was hit; they all have common needs in responding to the effects of the rain and wind. People in these states have all been without electricity, gasoline, essential food products and water. The number of families that are homeless along the New Jersey coast, on Staten Island, and on Long Island is well into the thousands.

Help has come from all over the country. The military, which is under the control of the federal government as opposed to the states, has delivered everything from heavy equipment to gasoline and water from a other areas. Huge C-17 and C-130 Hercules transport planes have flown in supplies from as far away as California. There is no way that each of the states that were hit by the hurricane could have fended for themselves, although Governor Romney has suggested that they should.

To better understand the recent states’-rights movement, we need to look back more than 40 years. In the mid and late 1960s, under the strong influence of President Lyndon Johnson, Congress passed civil rights bills that provide protection for minorities in issues such as voting rights, public accommodations, and fair housing. Southern Democrats (and there were a lot of them in the mid-1960s) and some Republicans opposed the civil rights movement. They viewed these laws were an encroachment of states’ rights. In reality, the states’ rights argument was just a cover to continue to discriminate against African-Americans and other minorities. In the 1968 elections, Republican Richard Nixon appealed to southern states to leave the Democratic Party and join him in the Republicans’ effort to support states’ rights. This point of view was further exploited by third party candidate George Wallace from Alabama.

By 1972, the South had basically flipped from Democrat to Republican. It has been that way ever since. What’s important to keep in mind is that the genesis of the southern migration from Democrat to Republican was the issue of states’ rights, a euphemism for racism. Over the past 40 years, the racism has continued to be an underlying motivation of the states’ rights movement. That’s why so many efforts towards voter suppression, primarily in northern states, have been directed towards making it more difficult for African-Americans, Hispanics, and other minorities to vote. Anything that can strengthen the states’ rights movement is favored by the mainstream of the Republican Party. These include the dismantling of FEMA, the voucherization of Medicare, the reduction of Medicaid funding, and a host of other programs. Presumably, the Republicans feel that they can advance their agendas more effectively at the state level. They’re probably right about that.

As Jared Bernstein wrote in a special report to the CNN website,

Neither we as individuals nor our cities or states can do it all ourselves. Imagine, as Mitt Romney has advocated, that FEMA were eliminated, privatized, or handed off to states in a block grant. Or consider the House Republican budget — authored by Rep. Paul Ryan and endorsed by Romney during the primaries — a proposal that would cut 22% from the part of the budget that supports this type of aid to the states, amounting to a loss of $28 billion in 2014, including a $2 billion cut in New York state alone.

Further imagine — and if you’ve been following the hundreds of thousands of state layoffs of key personnel in recent months, this shouldn’t be a stretch — that a disaster like Sandy occurred at a time when state budgets are already under great strain (as are many families’ budgets).

So, as you weigh the presumed advantages of farming out the responsibilities and resources of FEMA to the states, consider the recent origin of states’ rights. It has to do with racial discrimination. In reality, the movement goes back to the beginning of the settlement of America by Caucasians and the slaves from Africa that were forced into what became the Confederacy. The U.S. Constitution endorsed discrimination through the “three-fifths” clause, and eventually the Civil War was fought over the issue. What lies behind the 21^st Century Republican movement of states’ rights is what is sometimes called “America’s original sin.” From civil rights to FEMA, it’s important to strengthen the federal government, which is the real protector of our human rights and the general welfare of the country.

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Add Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer to the short [so far] list of state leaders who think single-payer health care is the way to go in their states.  According to the Progress Report, on Sept. 28, Schweitzer announced his intent to set up his own universal health care system in Montana, modeled after the single payer system in Canada.

Gov. Brian Schweitzer said he will ask the U.S. government to let Montana set up its own universal health care program, taking his rhetorical fight over health care to another level.  The popular second-term Democrat would like to create a state-run system that borrows from the program used in Saskatchewan. He said the Canadian province controls cost by negotiating drug prices and limiting non-emergency procedures such as MRIs.

Schweitzer’s proposal comes on the heels of a similar framework proposed earlier this year by Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin.

No fan of the PPACA health reform law passed by Congress in 2010, [Schweitzer has been quoted as calling that law “a pack of crap that gives away far too much to the pharmaceutical industry”], Schweitzer wants to tailor his plan to the demographics and economics of his state.

Under his plan, Montana citizens with private insurance could keep it or drop it if they choose and buy into the state-run plan at a cheaper rate. He envisions a system that would cover, with co-pays for service, all the uninsured in Montana.

To get what they want, Schweitzer, Shumlin—and any other governors hoping to create state-specific, single-payer programs—will have to get a waiver from the federal government that would exempt their states from the requirements of PPACA. The Obama administration has said that it’s willing to grant waivers as a way of encouraging innovations health-care delivery. But, under current rules, waivers would begin to become available in 2017—which seems a long way off, especially if your state has a high percentage of uninsured citizens. Vermont is asking to move the start of waivers to 2014, but it’s not clear, yet, whether that move will succeed.

One thing we do know is that Canada’s single-payer healthcare program got its own start in the province of Saskatchewan [whose demographics, says Schweitzer, are similar to those of Montana], and spread province-by-province, until the system went national. Perhaps a similar state-by-state strategy could ultimately bring single payer health care to all of the U.S., as well. And, perhaps, that’s what Schweitzer and Shumlin are envisioning.

One has to applaud both of these governors for their courageous and enlightened approaches to improving the quality of health and life for their citizens. It’s very heartening to see that the single-payer concept is still on the table. And maybe success in a few individual states will inspire other civic-minded state leaders to shed their irrational and hypocritical fears of “socialistic” programs and get on board. I sincerely hope they do, and, at the moment, I’ll cheer for any incremental steps that might help us move toward a national single-payer system.

Still, for this writer, a state-by-state approach is not as good as a national, Medicare for everyone plan. The incremental trajectory of going one state at a time is risky. There’s no guarantee that all states would ultimately adopt single-payer healthcare structures. And that would mean that where you happen to live would affect the cost and quality of your healthcare. And, while I’d like to think that both Governor Shumlin and Governor Schweitzer are proposing single-payer plans for the best interest of the citizens of their states, one must remember that other governors may see the chance to opt out of PPACA as convenient subterfuge for  asserting a states’-rights agenda while undermining any effort at creating a sane, uniform, nationwide healthcare policy. We’ve seen states’ rights at work before, and it’s not pretty. We need to remind ourselves of the dysfunction and fundamental inequalities created by a free-for-all patchwork of state policies on voting rights, racial integration, reproductive rights and economic assistance.

State-specific, single-payer healthcare plans could work and eventually go viral, and that could be a good thing that I would cheer for. But let’s go into this with our eyes open.

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What would happen in the U.S. if states and private mints were allowed to print their own money? Not being an expert on currencies and monetary policy, I am hardly the person to attempt to answer that question. But even a monetary amateur can see that this could be a very risky idea. Fortunately, as things stand, the Constitution specifies that it’s the role of the federal government to print currency. [Although proponents of competing currencies argue that the Constitution does not limit currency creation to the federal government.]

But in the anti-government, anti-Federal-Reserve frenzy created by ultra-conservative ideologues, a little thing like a fundamental, Constitutional hurdle isn’t stopping some lawmakers from trying—or at least trying to make a point. Congressman Ron Paul and legislators in 15 states have suggested that state-specific money would be a sound alternative to what they call the “dollar monopoly” of the Federal Reserve.

And they’re not just talking about it: they’re introducing legislation to make it happen. In 2009, Congressman Paul introduced a bill into Congress, which he called the “Free Competition in Currency Act” (HR. 4248). It would have allowed private mints to print currency in the United States. This year, Virginia state legislator Bob Marshall introduced a bill that would enable his state to create its own currency, which would compete with the dollar. Similar bills have been introduced in: Washington, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Colorado, Oklahoma, Indiana, Tennessee, Georgia, South Dakota, North Dakota, Vermont, Iowa and New Hampshire.

A few examples from 2011:

• In February, a South Carolina state politician proposed a plan for the state to develop its own gold and silver-based currency, “in case the Federal Reserve collapses and hyper-inflation ensues.”
• In Georgia, state Rep. Bobby Franklin introduced the Constitutional Tender Act, requiring “the exclusive use of gold and silver coin as tender in payment of debts by or to the state.” The coins he refers to are pre-1965 silver coins, silver eagles and gold eagles, which would be the “exclusive medium” the state could use to make any payments.
• In May, Utah became the first state in the country to legalize gold and silver coins as currency. The law also will exempt the sale of the coins from state capital gains taxes. One Utah politician has also suggested cutting out the middleman entirely, and allowing the state’s residents to run their own mints.

I’ll leave it to those with knowledge far above my pay grade to make the constitutional and monetary-policy arguments for and against these proposals. But, in my view, they certainly give off more than a whiff of states-rights ideology. And they seem to me to be part of a larger, right-wing, anti-government effort that has yielded state lawsuits aiming to get health-care reform declared unconstitutional, bills that would allow states to opt out of the Affordable Care Act, and even Texas Governor Rick Perry’s sideways threat of secession.

Does anyone else find this to be a scary scenario, with existential issues for the United States of America?

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Thanks to some smart and courageous state legislators around the country, the progressive agenda actually inched forward in 2011. Yes, you read that correctly: This year, progressive state laws have been enacted that may actually have a positive economic effect for families and state economies. And their passage came despite unprecedented assaults on the middle class by opponents on the right. Although I’m not one who customarily uses religious imagery or exclamations, I can say amen to that.

A recent article by Progressive States Network [PSN] lists 13 new, landmark laws that “may point the way forward for future years in other states—when [conservatives] will surely find themselves out of power once again…and promise to continue gaining momentum across the nation in years to come.”

Here, briefly, are Progressive State Network’s baker’s dozen of refreshing, progressive bills that don’t assault workers’, women’s or immigrants’ rights, that don’t balance state budgets on the backs of children and poor people, don’t give unneeded tax breaks to millionaires and corporate CEOs, and do responsibly raise revenues for struggling economies. More details, including states that have similar bills pending, are on Progressive States Network web page.

(1) Oregon: A new law increases accountability for corporate subsidies, by requiring a state agency to publish, on the state website, detailed information about the amount, purpose and intent of tax incentives directed to corporations.

(2) Illinois: SB 2505 raises the state corporate and personal income tax as a responsible way to generate revenue in a state whose governor said that its “fiscal house was burning.”

(3) Oregon: The legislature agreed to set up “Partnership Banks”—state-sponsored banks that serve as alternative depositories for state revenue, return part of their profits to the state, and keep public dollars in the community. [South Dakota’s public bank is the model for this plan.]

(4) Maryland: A new law, representing an effort to counter Citizens United, requires corporations, unions or other organizations that make independent expenditures and/or engage in electioneering to influence public policy or elections, to report their activities to their shareholders. Maryland is the first state to require this sort of transparency.

(5) Connecticut: In 2011, the legislature enacted the first statewide law guaranteeing workers the right to earn paid sick days. [The significance of this guarantee comes in its contrast to Wisconsin, where legislators enacted a law preempting municipal paid sick days ordinances and quashed the will of Milwaukee voters who overwhelmingly enacted such a law in 2008.]

(6) Texas: Even a red state can pass blue-tinged laws, as Texas did this year in SB 1024, which protects workers from wage theft by their employers.

(7) Maine: Despite efforts to roll back workers’ rights, the legislature created a work-sharing program: It helps employers avoid layoffs by “temporarily reducing their staff’s hours uniformly and entitling workers to a proportional share of unemployment insurance”. Even conservatives and Tea Partiers supported the bill, smartly recognizing it as an example of the fact that what is good for workers is also good for business, the economy, and the state as a whole,” says PSN.

(8) Oregon: Two bills passed in the 2011 session added funds to help rural and low-income families gain affordable access to the internet.

(9) Vermont: SB 78 empowers municipalities to regulate contruction and development of broadband networks. It also creates a “certificate of public good” for communications, to make it easier for communities to build their own networks, which is especially helpful in areas where “corporate providers have no economic incentives to deploy broadband networks.”

(10) Connecticut is setting a path toward a green economy by creating a green jobs task force. “The bill’s intention is to encourage the creation of innovative new jobs and specifically to ensure that students educated in the state have access to good, green jobs, and stay in-state to contribute to Connecticut’s economy,” says PSN.

(11) Colorado:  Although a partisan vote killed it, Colorado’s emblematic tuition-equity bill will come up again next year and has many cousins in other state legislatures. Its purpose is tuition equity, allowing undocumented students to attend public colleges and universities at in-state tuition rates.

(12) California:  Closing in on passage is an immigration-enforcement bill that would “set safeguards against racial profiling, protect children and domestic-violence victims from deportation and ensure access to due process for individuals who are accused but never convicted of a crime.”

(13) Connecticut: SB 921, which passed in the 2011 session, is a significant first step toward setting up the state-based healthcare exchanges at the heart of health-care reform.

So, progressives, take heart. In a year when Republicans swept into state legislatures and US Congressional seats in unprecedented numbers, and in a year that saw those new Republicans going on a right-wing, slash-and-burn rampage–reason, sanity, responsibility and even concern for the public good still managed to rise above selfishness, greed and corrupting influences, and trickle toward a better future. Hallelujah.

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