After the pathetic performance of the Republican controlled government over the past few years, I came to the conclusion that the single thing that can cure many ills is Federalism. (Part of this is some change in the U.S. Constitution to prevent this out-of-control spending by the Federal governemnt.) Each state can implement its own ideas of utopia. What doesn't work will fail and what works will be copied by others. It's obvious to me that whether Democrats or Republicans are in control of government, we'll move closer and closer to and all powerful central government where state governments are merely implementors of federal law. There are no more checks on elected officials except the voting booth and this is not enough.
The 17th amendment to the US Constitution is what broke Federalism. Originally the Senate was designed to represent a different constitutency than the House of Representatives, namely the states as political entities. By adding the 17th amendment to popularly elect Senators, we stripped the states of their voice in the government. When the state legislatures were represented in the Senate, the Senate would protect the States legislatures from encroachment of the federal government into the powers of the states. Now that the state governments no longer have a voice in the national government, they are effectively cut out of the decision making process which ensure that they will remain subservient to the national government rather than equal participants in the government itself. Since the states have been stripped of any voice on in the affairs of the national government since 1913, federalism has been weakened. If you want to save federalism give the state governments back their voice in the Senate and repeal the 17th amendment.