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Congress doesn’t work, the debt is out of control, and trust in our institutions is crumbling. If we continue on the current path, things will get worse—eventually much worse. But there is an obvious fix, a way to change course and restore some of the trust and functioning to our institutions. The answer is federalism.

Perhaps ironically, federalism means doing less at the federal (or national) level of government. This might, or might not, mean government does less overall. Federalism pushes power down to state and local governments, where democratic institutions can decide whether and how to exercise that power. It’s a simple way to give more Americans what they want, hold government accountable, and improve outcomes.

How do we know it works? It’s basic math. If 100 people vote on whether to kayak, hike, play board games, or take a cooking class—and they all have to do whatever the plurality wants—then a lot of people won’t get what they want. But if you break up the one big group into many smaller groups, more people will get what they want. If they can change groups over time based on shared interests, nearly everyone can end up happy.

Of course, there need to be some basic rules, and we have those so that state and local governments respect basic freedoms. A single currency and some basic, shared economic rules also make it easy for families and businesses to move in response to good or bad public policy. This is often called “voting with our feet” and is another way to hold governments accountable.

Finally, trying different policies in different states lets us see what works. Sometimes, results will be different just because people want different things. But sometimes the results will show that one policy is much better or worse than others.

Federalism is more than a theory—it’s actually the law. The Constitution limits the national government’s powers mainly to national defense, foreign policy, and managing relations between the states. Over time, federal officials like presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lyndon B. Johnson ignored the law and expanded national power. Undoing those mistakes and returning to the Constitution offers a straightforward (though not politically easy) path to restoring function and faith in government.