“Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States.” —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
Cochran is arguably using revenues stolen from Mississippi (and other states) in the form of constitutonally indefensible federal taxes to buy votes from low-information voters. And since state lawmakers unthinkingly gave up the voice of the state legislatures in Congress by foolishly ratifying the ill-conceived 17th Amendment, there's little that the Mississippi legislature and other state legislatures can do about it in the foreseeable future.
Otherwise, state lawmakers need to make sure that intrastate schools star teaching students about the federal government's constitutionally limited powers the way that the Founding States had intended for those powers to be understood.
Take Cochran's support for the Farm Bill for example. The Supreme Court has historically clarified, in terms of the 10th Amendment nonetheless, that the states have never delegated to Congress, via the Constitution, the specific power to legislatively address agricultural issues.
”From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited. None to regulate agricultural production is given, and therefore legislation by Congress for that purpose is forbidden [emphasis added].” —United States v. Butler, 1936.
Given Justice Marshall's statement on Congress's limited power to lay taxes, Congress cannot tax and spend for agricultural purposes. Again, crooks like Cochran are unconstitutionally spending for agricultural purposes probably to buy votes.
Not Yours to Give
http://www.fee.org/library/detail/not-your-to-give-2