When the Washington Post's Neil Peirce wonders if state government is "obsolete," he's not echoing Carla Howell. Instead, he worries that gubernatorial "theatrics" (think Palin, Sanford, Blagojevich, etc.) and legislative straitjackets (for example, the requirement that tax increases pass with two-thirds of the vote in California) are making it impossible for states to solve fiscal calamities.
To make matters worse, says Peirce, state governments aren't equipped to deal with regional economies, as most metropolitan regions cross state lines or face hostile legislative majorities. Example: The state of Georgia refuses to let the Atlanta region tax itself for transportation improvements.
Peirce asks:
If we were organizing the United States for the first time, right now, would we repeat our arbitrarily drawn state lines across the continent? And would we stick like glue to our existing political units –- roughly 85,000 cities, towns, boroughs, counties and districts, some drawn up in the colonial mist of three centuries past?
We claim to have the world’s longest-standing democracy. But our Constitution was written by representatives from a thin string of ex-colonies whose largest city (Philadelphia) had 44,000 people. Suburbs didn’t even exist.
I doubt that his arguments will find sympathetic ears in state capitals. There's a catch-22 here: If the Atlanta region had enough political power to win some kind of political autonomy, it would have enough power to control state government anyway.
Regional planning (or the lack thereof) has long been an issue in Massachusetts; Pierce's column is a good reminder that regionalism is, in fact, a national issue.