No Child Left Alone By the Federal Government

Memes like the following get comments like "Why can't the Tea Party actually be for something?"

When Congress passes No Child Left Unfed, No Child Without Health Care and No Child Left Homeless, then we can talk seriously about No Child Left Behind.

Ah, another staggeringly obvious thought by Americans Against the Tea Party (geez, why couldn't they actually be for something?). The question that always occurs to me is, Why doesn't each STATE solve these problems? Last time I checked the states had the same source of revenue (i.e. the people that put more money into government than they take out) that the federal government does. Oh wait, I get it--the federal government has geniuses that have a better track record then our local state politicians. Our own state politicians are too close to the actual problem. States have incompetent bureaucracies but the Fed has magical superpowers! Woo-hoo! We simply give the Fed more involvement in our lives, they can take more money to implement the solution, and this problem that the states have been unable to fix will be finally addressed.  And now, here is my perpetual motion machine which will solve the energy crisis...

The more tempted we are to solve a serious problem with nationalization, due to the urgency or the emotional charge of the problem, the more we should be skeptical of whether it will be used as a wedge to give unnecessary power to the national rulers.  The more sincere people are who are being roused to solve the problem, the more scared the people are, the more noble seems the purpose,  the more we should be wary, at the point of outright paranoia, of the issue being used as a wedge against the protective principles of our Republic.