Adumbration

In my catalog of feasible and defensible steps to reduce the power of the state, devolving existing power to lower levels of government ranks right up there.  Depending on the abomination, power dispersal can be preferable to continuing some larger scale awfulness prosecuted in the name of the public interest.  At least when we disperse power, the local community has a greater chance of reduction or repeal of the intervention, although I grant that a determined minority can still impose their will in a smaller community.  Diverse local control also makes it easier for the community to re-locate to more live and let live political environments. 

But it might also matter the issue - while State governments have their own military forces, they don't execute an adversarial foreign policy, and restrictions on state power is generally a good thing, so I support constitutional limits on federal power to wage war. 

On the other hand, developments around the minimum wage might lead to a tricky balance between these strategies.  According to The Seattle Times, an organization linked by the ST's Lynn Thompson to persistent initiative sponsor Tim Eyman, has recently proposed an initiative that would bring all power to set minimum wage to the State (see number 1358 at that link, title issued 6/2/2014), rather than allow local jurisdictions such as Sea-Tac and Seattle to exercise this type of wage and price control.  I-1358 would also revert the local initiatives to the prior condition of State control of minimum wage.  The expectation is that since such a high minimum wage as passed the Seattle City Council has not become state legislation, the new $15 mandate would essentially by voided here. 

It is a Faustian bargain to deliver such power into the hands of State government - the power to give what you want is equal to take what you have, when political winds run afoul.  Imagine the far greater damage to people's lives if a $15/hour limit kept tens of thousands of people from being allowed to work across all of Washington, rather than fewer people affected by more concentrated damage done to workers in the I-5 corridor around Seattle and Sea-Tac.  So while I am on record in opposition to increasing the minimum wage (e.g. here, here, here), I have reservations about supporting Initiative 1358.

On the plus side, there is continuing local opposition to forced unemployment.  Forward Seattle has proposed to amend the Seattle city charter in effect to increase the minimum wage to the merely horrendous $12.50 rather than $15, to reduce rather than avoid the harm.  The ST notes:

Kathrina Tugadi, owner of a restaurant and a club in north Seattle, said the group is concerned that small business won’t be able to survive the jump to $15 an hour. She also is concerned about the uneven phase-in, with some large businesses required to pay $15 in three years, while small businesses have seven years.

It's strange when major media outlets such as the ST don't follow up on the implications of that concern.

I can understand that some people don't think much deeper than the surface - Will Hutton at the Guardian/Observer doesn't blink at such economic considerations.  That working for less than $15/hour makes it hard to afford nice toys is almost the defining characteristic of poverty, but Mr Hutton and others are unconcerned that working not at all might not be a preferable state of affairs.

The end of a business means the end of all it's jobs, even those that already pay $15/hour or more.