You're very right in that the third rail here is federalism. Mostly that, at a certain scale and with certain kinds of heterogeneity, it stops working, and you start getting bizarre situations where the have-nots are not angry that they have not, but rather that the haves have. As one of those haves, I am very in-favor of spreading that around. The solution, however, is to not discourage the having, but to actually spread it around. That spread is not created by punitively punishing those who, as one of those "civic society" things, decide that it's a good idea to do things to help the people who live in it.
I mean, let's be real for a sec (and I have a feeling you know this, I'm not trying to lecture, it's just a convenient jumping-off point): the only impact of the pseudopolicy proposed here is to damage states with the temerity to have a functioning economy and social safety net and to damage their implementations thereof, not to provide better implementations in places that currently lack. After all--the federal appetite for tax cuts and military spending seems to know few bounds.
As such, framing it as either equity or equality for the poor, benighted Kansases of the world and their Sam Brownbacks rings more than a little hollow.
I mean, let's be real for a sec (and I have a feeling you know this, I'm not trying to lecture, it's just a convenient jumping-off point): the only impact of the pseudopolicy proposed here is to damage states with the temerity to have a functioning economy and social safety net and to damage their implementations thereof, not to provide better implementations in places that currently lack. After all--the federal appetite for tax cuts and military spending seems to know few bounds.
As such, framing it as either equity or equality for the poor, benighted Kansases of the world and their Sam Brownbacks rings more than a little hollow.