I have a govt. question.

[leftyladyfrommo]

If the Fed. govt is nonfunctional can the State governments move in to fill the huge gaps?

The current Fed. court system is becoming just a political body. The Emergency system is hopelessly broken.

The health and education departments are going down.

We need something to fill in these huge holes.

[DeminPennswoods]

1. Not really

States will go on with their usual business of doing the things each state does using their own revenue, but many state projects have a federal dollar component so those things get cut back, delayed, etc.

[3Hotdogs]

2. --- or to put it another way, We're fucked.

[Sherman A1]

3. The federal government is not

Unfunctional and performs very well.

[leftyladyfrommo]

4. As proven by Puerto Rico 1 year after Maria. nt

[Sherman A1]

7. A valid point but more a question of

Leadership than function of the entire government.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

5. Our separation of powers and checks and balances do not seem to be working.

They are certainly not working as the founders envisioned them.

[Sherman A1]

6. Yet the mail arrives daily

Social Security checks go out, planed are guided to their destinations, highway projects continue and all. Yes, we have large problems with the current leadership, but it’s a huge stretch to say that the government is nonfunctional.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

8. Benefits checks went out

Benefits checks went out, planes were guided to their destinations, highway projects continued in the Shah's Iran, Batista's Cuba, Franco's Spain, Marcos' Philippines and Putin's Russia but their constitutional systems were or are clearly broken.

[Sherman A1]

9. The point was of the nonfunctionalality of

Government, which could have been answered had the OP paid attention in High School Civics. It was not a question of the working of any constitutional system. If that’s the question I am sure it can be asked.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

10. The government is functioning largely thanks to the "deep state", errr permanent bureaucracy .

But our separation of powers and checks and balances are breaking down.

[Sherman A1]

11. And that was not the question of

The OP.

[uponit7771]

12. It did that in Germany circa 1944, that's not a functioning gov

[Sherman A1]

14. It is a functioning

Government. Granted that was not one of which most would approve, but it was functional. The OP asked about function not constitutional issues which seems to be the issue with the various responses.

[BumRushDaShow]

13. "If the Fed. govt is nonfunctional can the State governments move in to fill the huge gaps?"

States already do this, whether the federal government is "functional" or not. In our "Republic" form of government, a state's operational hierarchy generally mirrors the federal one.

Federal "involvement" happens through use of federal tax money to fund agencies that do work that benefits all states and through "3rd-party" handling of interactions between states ("interstate commerce" ). But a problem could be financial (lack of a sufficient tax base within a state) and the potential lack of other types of resources that would need to come from other states or from national entities, to help a particular state in need.