Walter Russell Mead: Return Powers to the States

From Mead's The American Interest blog:

Power has been drifting toward Washington and the federal government in the American political system; it needs to start drifting back home to the states and to local communities or our democratic system will become increasingly strained.

The latest poll from Pew is a shocker: almost 80 percent of Americans don’t trust the Federal government to do the right thing.  The Federal government received its lowest ratings in decades, with Congress in particular standing at record lows in the public esteem.  Record or near record numbers also express the view that they want a smaller government with fewer programs.  The RCP maintains a rolling average of polls on a range of questions; according to these ‘polls of polls’, 71.2 percent of those asked disapprove of Congress and only 36.6 percent think the country is headed in the right direction.