In This Week with George Stephanopoulos on February 26, 2012 (transcript), Jennifer Granholm made the following argument to appeal to libertarians.
But the irony is, if you believe in the laboratories of democracy and you hear Governor Patrick saying it's worked and it's enormously popular across the board, the business community likes it, why wouldn't you look at a model like that as something that the entire country could embrace?
Granholm is asking, if there's a great state program and you believe in laboratories of democracy, how could you not want that state program imposed at the national level?
I am a strong proponent of laboratories of democracy. But Governor Granholm misses the point entirely. She actually misses three points:
- People in different states are different. A solution meant for one state, like Massachusetts, may not work in a state like Utah. They have different economies, different populations, different outlooks.
- Some mechanisms that work on a small scale may not work on a large scale. North Dakota has recently done well by focusing on its natural resources. Paul Krugman would be the first to tell you that that doesn't make it a promising solution to the US's energy problems.
- Laboratories imply experimentation. If the federal government imposes its solution on all states, that leaves very little room for experimentation. If something's wrong with Massachusetts's plan, how long will it take to determine the problem and a potential solution when every state must adhere to the same structure? If Massachusetts's system works, other states will adopt it. If they see minor problems, they'll adopt the majority and try to fix the rest.