I may have had too many Bloody Mary's but I am serious. I think the time of the individual states inside the Union has passed.
No one would go for it, but seriously. Why would anyone want to deal with the arcane laws of each state? Alcohol laws are the most frustrating. Who owns the liquor stores in your state? In VA it is the state. In WA there are taverns where you can't buy liquor: only beer and wine.
But those laws aren't the problem. Medicaid is a problem. Welfare is a problem. Special tax cuts for a relocating business are a problem. Corruption and craziness in the state legislatures are a problem.
The poverty of Mississippi and West Virginia is a problem.
States have outlived their usefulness. The arcane laws of each state hamper business. The idea of the tenth amendment and of state militias are past. The overarching melding of the american culture. Of McD's at every freeway exit. Of American Idol and NPR. It is time for politics to STOP being local unless local is the whole planet.
Why should senators only think of their own states and not of everyone in the nation and in the world? But every year the Corn states need their ethanol donations passed. Damn the rest of the nation and the rest of the world.
Imagine there were senators with equal populations. Heck, Kansas would have to share one with Nebraska, South Dakota and North Dakota.
One set of license plates. One set of driver's licenses. No more state taxes. Sales taxes and income taxes and property taxes all simplified.
The more I think about it, the more I know it would not happen because it makes too much damn sense.