Books in Brief: The New Federalism

The New Federalism, by Michael D. Reagan (Oxford, 175 pp., $5.95). “In Siam,” says the King in The King and I, “we have a new form of democracy called absolute monarchy.” In the U.S., says Prof. Reagan, we have a new form of federalism called “permissive federalism.” He likes it because it strips states of anachronistic “rights” while “permitting” them to implement grants-in-aid in accordance with federal guidelines. In Reaganese, the “new” federalism permits “appropriate state-local inputs to [sic] the details of program implementation.” Appropriate? Details? Implementation? This is permissiveness? Reagan rejoices that we have come a long way from the point where states had rights regarding the formulation as well as implementation of significant policies. His only fear (groundless, I fear) is that revenue sharing may retard our progress toward a “unitary state”: “The founding fathers were willing to change the style of government from the Articles of Confederation of 1787 when it became clear that different times demanded different rules of governance. Should we be less bold than they?” No, we should not. But Reagan’s idea of boldness is to continue our forty year trot toward a bland leviathan. It would be bolder—and wiser—to reconsider the many virtues of the Confederation.