The underlying problem here is the federal government. If we can't stop the feds from spending trillions of dollars of Monopoly money, then to starve the states and cities is self-defeating.
What we should strive for, it seems to me, is to strengthen states at the expense of the central behemoth in Washington. To starve the state is to feed the real beast by default. For far too long already, states have been functionally reduced to mere administrative units of the fed. That's not the American way.
True. But there are also massive federal mandates on states which require states and localities to allocate their resources in a certain way. Many of these mandates come with federal money to offset the costs but many do not. Educational requirements come to mind.
If enough governors who can't balance budgets because of plummeting revenues go to DC and demand that they be released from the federal mandates that are eating their budgets alive, then there might be some results.
I'm just skeptical that anything can get changed from the top down. DC politicians are so arrogant and out of touch, they don't care what the folks out here think and want, especially the middle class who makes the economy run. They only seem to care about their fat cat donors and the leeches of society. It's like banging your head against the wall because they just ignore us until about six months before an election, then they just pay us lip service to get re-elected.