I believe that the United States is so polarized politically because they do not separate their politics from the politicians a party puts up as a canddate. I believe that most Americans, a very substantial majority in fact, would agree on almost all the issues that have serious impacts on life in America for the foreseeable future. For the issues they do not agree on I have a suggestion throughout this document to remedy that and quite possibly make more people happier in their daily lives.

To illustrate this lets look at the recent democratic primaries. You had really 2 viable candidates from early on, Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama. The votes came out at the end to be roughly 50/50 between these two. This means that half the party had slightly different opinions on who would represent their ideals best. I would go further to suggest that the vast majority of those that picked Hillary or Barrack did not 100% agree with everything and/or think the candidate was going to do more than they think should be done.

Another example would be the average republican that I have seen during my life. These are in different states in the Union, and through many years. They are normally financially responsible in their home life, not overly wealthy but not poverty stricken, reasonably well educated by American standards (IE some college to advanced degrees), want lower taxes, smaller government, and hold the constitution dear. Many of them also are not pleased with the current Republican president as indicated by approval ratings.

I am not saying this is bad, quite the contrary, you always have to make compromises in how something will be done when you elect someone other than yourself, and when you have 300M people in a country and only a couple of candidates you will have to make substantial compromises. There is a way to get better government and lower taxes, something that I believe both parties, and the several dozen smaller ones, can all get behind. The best part is that it takes only adherence to the Constitution, a very often overlooked section to it.

Both groups have people within them that do not embrace 100% what the party does, and I do not think that is a bad thing as both parties have done some really bad stuff over the years.

The 10th Amendment to the Constitution states that any power not implicitly given to the Federal Government is a right of the states and the People. So if the Constitution does not allow the federal government to pass a law, they cannot, or if they do the Supreme Court should strike it down. This applies to agency creation as well. The way that most of the abuses of this provision come about is through the "interstate and foreign commerce" clause which is Article I Section 8 Clause 3 of the US Constitution. It states that if something is involved in interstate or foreign commerce or between the several Indian tribes then the federal government can legislate regarding that transaction.

The problem is that the government uses hot button issues to supersede that power. Guns are federal because the steel went from Pennsylvania to Connecticut where Colt firearms is located, so its federal for life. This logic is not applied to many other products, and it would become insane to call the FBI when a 6 year old steals a candy bar made in Hershey, PA. Another example would be with the drug statutes. The federal drug statutes say that because some drugs are involved in interstate and foreign commerce, and the government cannot tell which are and which are not, they all are. In 2001 the Supreme Court ruled in a medicinal marijuana case from California that even if you can prove that nothing was involved in interstate or foreign commerce it still was. Another would be with the hacking statutes, now virtually everything is federal even if it happens in the same building. Where is the interstate or foreign commerce jurisdictional hook? They claim that if the victim computer was at some time involved in interstate or foreign commerce OR COMMUNICATION, then its allowed. So they are expanding even what the constitution says in this statute.

This is very dangerous because it sets the order of the day to be "everything is federal". The federal government was never intended to have this much power. It was never intended to be the end all be all government entity. Did you know that the Constitution states you are a citizen of the state in which you reside as well as the United States? And lets think about this for a moment, United States, its a Union of the several States each a sovereign entity, who banded together, conferring some rights (and thus some sovereignty but not all) to the Union. The European Union has member states, while not as numerous as the US with only 27, they include states like Germany, France, Spain. Yes that is right, the term state does imply sovereignty, why do you think there is a federal "Department of State"?

If the Constitution allowed for the federal government to just take jurisdiction wherever it wanted, why would they have added the 10th amendment? Why were there specific discussions from the original drafting of the Constitution through the first 10 amendments, otherwise known as the Bill of Rights? It is because there were some that feared that the main body of the Constitution was not strict enough, it gave the federal government too much power, and they wanted to guarantee that some essential rights would not be deprived.

If the 10th amendment is followed, then more government would be closer to the people. When was the last time you got the chance to recall a federally elected official? When was the last time you got to vote on a referendum on a controversial law? When was the last time a bad law was passed and you got to elect new people who immediately repealed it? Many states allow these to happen, the federal government does not quite so easily, and for some of those things its impossible.

By moving the power back to the states where the Constitution states it belongs, the people have more power. Further, by reducing the size and scope of the federal government you will find that federal taxes will be lowered. It is my estimate that 80% of the non-military federal government is in violation of the 10th amendment. Given that the US federal corporate tax is roughly equal to the peacetime budget for the military, if personal income taxes were lowered by 60% you would see a savings and 20% or roughly $600B extra each year could go towards paying off the deficit which currently exceeds $9T. The reason its $600B extra is because what is currently being paid would continue to be paid. It would take 15 years, but a balanced budget and paying down the deficit would go a long way towards making the economy much stronger, jobs more plentiful, and the dollar stronger making goods cheaper. I think that most Americans would find that to be a good result. And once the deficit is paid off, you can get an additional tax break since the government would not need that surplus any more.

Governments on all levels have shown that they cannot be trusted. However, it is harder to police a government when most people cannot get access to it, or are not even geographically close. It seems that the federal government has more secrets with its operations than the state governments do. When a government has money, power through the use of intelligence agencies, police, military, it will eventually abuse it, its just a matter of time. State governments generally do not have intelligence agencies, and the national guard would be difficult to deploy against civilians again. As a result by placing more power there it becomes easier to avoid some of the abuses because their power will be curbed. And if a state does become a bit out of control, the federal government can help to ensure your rights as protected by the Constitution, or you can just move to a new State, which is easier to do than moving to a new country.

Now there is a slight downside. The States would have to compensate for the lack of federal programs that were once available that would no longer exist. This means that they would have to raise taxes to offset the additional costs. OK, you take some of that 60% you saved from federal tax and give it to the state instead. You still should have some additional money in your pocket, since governments are not known for efficiency and financial responsibility, there has to have been some waste saved by money not going to the feds first then reallocated to the states via some program or service.

Another downside, and probably a larger problem to combat are the activists that want to dominate everything. They are not happy with local laws that govern them and their families, they want the same laws everywhere, even when people in some other area do not want the same laws. Why should, for example, California tell Nebraska how to live from day to day? What laws should be in place? Sure Nebraska has only 600,000 people and California has 35 million, but Nebraska is a different state and if people in, again for example, California want to have certain laws, live a certain way they shouldnt bully other states with a lower population simply by forcing laws to be federal when really they should be state laws.

Further, its easier for a state to get upset over the budget, look at California, who kicked Gray Davis out of office and put in Arny when California was $80B in debt. This means that each state can vote politicians out easier when they spend too much, or are too wasteful. States that are more efficient will have lower taxes, this will create competition for businesses and some individuals. That will cause other states to compete by lowering their taxes and creating a better environment. I seem to recall one of the founding fathers making a similar statement about States competing for people and saying this would be impossible if the government was all federalized. This was part of the justification used for the 10th amendment when it went to the several states for voting.

Support the 10th amendment by not voting for politicians that violate it. If possible recall them. Support politicians from any party that will actively try to repeal legislation that violates the 10th amendment (or really any other). The problem you face is that you are asking someone to run for office and vote to reduce their power. This takes a special person, an uncommon person, and it takes enough of them to actually get the legislation out of committee and past a vote. I fear that the majority of parties out there will not produce candidates that meet this, until they start loosing voters to candidates that do, but if you demand that this issue be addressed by writing your representatives, your local party committee, the national party committee, and anyone else that will listen, eventually you will start to see more and more people willing to support the constitution in its entirety.

If you do not like the 10th amendment and believe that the federal government should be able to do whatever it wants with legislation, then I strongly encourage you to vote to repeal it. I also would request that until repealed you do honor it and do not actively support legislation or programs that would violate it.