The Federalism Fairy

I think Yglesias correctly identifies the very most annoying part of zombie-eyed granny-starver Paul Ryan’s budget. It’s not just that he portrays his destroy-the-safety-net-to-fund-upper-class-tax-cuts-and-runaway-defense-spending budget as a measure to preserve the safety net, although that’s awful enough. It’s that he tries to reconcile the contradictions by invoking state governments and their alleged ability to “tailor their resources to particular populations.” What this means in practice, of course, is that when the state have less money “particular populations” like poor people and especially poor racial minorities will find themselves without a safety net.

UPDATE:  I agree with Anderson that Chait is great on this as well.