It's really hard not to wonder if there is a political motivation to break the Federal government so that even the U.S. left would seek to devolve it.
> In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. - Ronald Reagan
Starving the Beast as a strategy just led to very high government borrowing, which is even worse for taxpayers - now they theoretically have to pay for government spending, plus a real rate interest.
1) Rolled back social security or Medicare?
2) Rolled back the administrative state in any respect?
3) Developed any significant power back to the states?
None of that happened. Government spending as a percentage of GDP increased, from 30% to 35%. Just more slowly than in the immediate post-New Deal era. Characterizing attempts to hold the line or make modest reforms as wanting to “break the federal government” is a cute bit of rhetoric, but you’d have to be very gullible to believe it.
We’re about to go into an election where 2 of 3 leading Democratic candidates proposed new programs that would take US government spending as a percentage of GDP past that of Sweden. More than half of the economy would be the government, versus a mere third today.
By contrast, did any serious Republican candidate propose a corresponding opposite movement? Decreasing total government spending by 15 points to 20% would take us into the 1940s and 1950s (so still post New Deal). No? That should tell you a lot about how much basis your assertion has in reality.
The suggestion here is that the Republicans aren't able to pull back these social programs because even their own constituents would be up in arms. The next best strategy is to so thoroughly break the Federal Government that no one would support it anymore.