Federalism is a good idea, but not because state and local governments are good, or even benign.

Instead, federalism is a good idea because a one-size-fits-all central government is almost sure to deliver bad outcome.

By contrast, a decentralized system allows jurisdictional competition, which means a lower likelihood of bad outcomes. And, maybe in a few cases, actual good outcomes (with Switzerland being a role model).

Take the issue of transportation.

The bad news is that the United States has a Department of Transportation in Washington. Needless to say, that bureaucracy needs to be shut down and the federal gas tax should be repealed.

The good news is that this is an area where the United States still has a good bit of federalism. State governments are still responsible for most transportation spending and collect the lion’s share of gas taxes.

Does that mean states and localities are doing a good job? Of course not. But at least we have some ability to compare states.

For instance, a recent report in the Washington Post compared gas taxes with the quality of highways. Lo and behold, higher gas taxes are actually correlated with lower-quality.

Here’s a map showing which states have good highways (dark green are best) and which states are at the bottom (dark pink is worst).

However, there’s not a perfect match between gas taxes and highway spending. Some money from gas taxes is used for other purposes and some revenues from other taxes is used for highways.

So the Post report also compared overall tax burdens with the quality of highways.

Once again, higher taxes are associated with worse outcomes.

By the way, is anybody surprised that California has both high taxes and low-quality highways?

It’s almost as if the state government is the poster child for my First Theorem of Government. But I’ll still cheer for bad federalism compared to to no federalism.