Democracy For Nepal: Federalism Is Cheaper Than The Unitary System

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Federalism Is Cheaper Than The Unitary System

English: A map of Canada exhibiting its ten provinces and three territories, and their capitals. (Lambert conformal conic projection from The Atlas of Canada) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Federalism is cheaper than the unitary system in place, because federalism is a far more efficient way of delivering government services to the people. This whole idea that expenses will go up 10 times because there will be 10 new states is bizarre. It is even more bizarre because that argument is being pushed around by some otherwise very smart people.

Law enforcement is handled by states in a federal system. That means the central government budget for law enforcement will go down by at least 90%. The civil war has long been over but the bloated army has not been downsized. There is a 90% savings when you bring down the number of soldiers to 10,000 from its current 90,000.

Several ministries can be outright eliminated. A bunch can be brought together. All need to be downsized. I see a 50% cost saving if all this is done right. Why is there a separate Ministry Of Irrigation? Why is that not part of the Ministry of Agriculture?

Agriculture
Tourism
Defense
Education
Health
Energy
Finance
Foreign Affairs
Home
Industry
Trasportation
Science And Technology
Federal Affairs
Information And Communications

These 14 ministries would be enough. All would be restructured. All would be downsized. All would be computerized.

The state governments would generate their own revenues. The local governments would have their own budgets. What can be done locally should not be passed on to the state and central governments. What can be done at the state level should not passed to the central government. That is what federalism means. In this arrangement the efficiency goes way up. And that is why the costs come down dramatically.