Bring it on - we conservatives say we're federalists, so let's see what works

Seattle union member

Blue state unions are refocusing their efforts on individual states

From minimum wage hikes to expanded workforce regulations, unions are planning to shift from Washington to individual states and municipalities in the hope of achieving their goals in Democrat-run zones of occupation. That seems to me to be a good thing for the country as a whole, and if the residents of those states suffer, well that's good too.

Opponents of wage and price controls have long argued that laws that defy the economic "law" of supply and demand retard growth, kill small businesses and drive costs up, but apparently many voters don't believe it. Well here's the chance to experiment in a targeted way, just as California's ever-growing body of regulations on everything from chicken eggs to automobiles offer an opportunity to see the effects from afar (though to the extent that California's huge economic power will force national manufacturers to change all their products nationwide in order to keep selling in the Golden State, we're all participants in the experiment, voluntarily or not - nothing's perfect in this world). 

And who knows? Maybe in Maine, whose voters just (barely 1% margin) increased the minimum wage to $15, thousands of teenagers won't lose their summer jobs and small businesses will thrive, all as promised by proponents of the measure. And maybe creating the second-highest tax bracket in the country will unleash a flood of new revenue for the legislature to spend.

New York, Washington, Oregon, California and Connecticut will all be joining Maine and several other Democrat bastions to try out their theory of economic growth that can be dictated by the government. You might think that the spectacular, ongoing collapse of Venezuela and the failure of every socialist state in the world would be sufficient evidence, but apparently not, so go at it. And if those states prosper, then we skeptics will have to concede our error, and perhaps move the rest of the country in that direction.

One of the objections to ObamaCare was that, by imposing a national, one-size-fits-all system, Congress was depriving the country an opportunity to have 50 different approaches tried, the better to learn what could work and what wouldn't. Let's let the unions and their allies have that opportunity in their own yards.