The Discerning Texan

Good grief. All I have to say to this is hopefully most cities have learned their lessons from the Banks and Auto Makers who accepted bailout funds. It's like taking money from the Mob: you get in but you can't get out.

On the other hand there is the State of Oklahoma, who do seem to have their act together: today the Oklahoma House overrode a veto by the Governor and therefore enacted a law that declares Oklahoma to be "sovereign" under the Tenth Amendment of the US Constitution, which states:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

This presumably gives the state the ability to opt out of any "mandatory" federal programs in which it does not choose to participate, particularly those which are not involved in Interstate commerce. Of course, this also means that in such cases, the State would not get the Federal dollars earmarked for it--but a majority of Oklahomans appear to be just fine with all that. Who knows: maybe that even applies to the whole EPA ruling that what every single one of us exhales (and plants use to produce oxygen) is a pollutant. So does that mean we need to kill all the people to stop the exhaling?

Texas Governor Rick Perry made news when he advocated a similar soverignity measure at a San Antonio Tea Party on Tax Day, and I am all for that: but here is my .02 for the Governor Perry and the Texas Legislature: Actions speak louder than words. Stop talking and start walking.

Texas, Montana and Alaska are also pursuing soverignity laws concerning firearms manufactured and sold within their respective states. This is all a good trend.

Which brings us back to this new idea for Federal Cities Bailout Agency: is this an attempt by the Federal Government to trump the new movement of "sovereign" State laws, e,g, if the Cities (but not States) were to accept Federal money? The problem is that City law is also trumped by State law, so you could have some really messy court battles over Federalism in the coming year.

With the reckless and dangerous way that the federal government is writing hot checks and printing up money, picking a fight with States over the rights specifically delegated to the States under the Constituion would not seem to be an astute political move in this climate; in fact I would think it could trigger a backlash that would severely hurt Democrats in the mid-terms.

I hope more states decide to test these waters.