With a population of over three hundred million people and an increasingly diverse set of principles and opinions, the United States has a growth problem.

The Founding Fathers predicted this issue and emphasized the importance of local governments. Their logic: that people with similar principles will congregate in similar areas. As members of the overall country, the process is made simple and requires no special passport or application. Smaller communities can take a stand on issues of importance and make an exception for their jurisdiction.

The individual state, as originally intended as the largest of these communities, has now been subverted by an even larger national one. We are increasingly merging into the United State as opposed to a collection of United States. Just saying the “United State” sends 1984 chills down my spine.

Here’s the problem; the federal government is growing. Just look at the latest bailout bill, national health-care legislation or TARP funds. It doesn’t end there either; just a few days ago another smaller $15 billion dollar billion “jobs bill” was passed.

Do you believe in socialized medicine? You have a right to that belief, but why forces it on every other state instead of making it a priority in your own? Massachusetts attempted health-care reform and it didn’t work out too well. But they have a much better chance of successfully overhauling their system because they have a population of 6.5 million compared to three hundred million. Do you trust the government to efficiently run a project of that size?

Then there is the issue of majority opinion. Even if they manage a 51 percent majority consensus on an issue like health care (which is impossible), wouldn’t you rather have a larger percentage? If every state had a different health-care initiative, people could rally more successfully for what they want. Why not take it a step further and bring it down to counties and cities. There would be less need to compromise on crucial issues and more chance of a higher ratio of majority acceptance. And best of all, your opinion and your voice are (literally) much more likely to be heard and appreciated.

Look at your local proposals for the last few years; individual states and communities can actually make decisions with greater than a 60 percent popular vote! How likely is that on the national scale? In the local scenario you would have the freedom to go or move to another city, county or state if you really cared enough about certain issues. And you wouldn’t have to change your citizenship.