I'm not too much into high finance, and I literally loathe politics, so take this for what it's worth. But the original intent of the founders of the US was to have relatively independent states with a small federal government to oversee the common defense and basically to mediate any interstate problems. Naturally, as the country grew larger, the federal government grew larger as well. There were, and still are, certain laws and regulations which the federal government needs to maintain, especially regarding interstate issues. It wouldn't be good, for example, if you had to have a different driver's license for each state you intended to drive in. So each state recognizes the driving privileges of people from another state.

However, it does look like the federal system has grown too large, and taken over too many different aspects of governance which should, by rights, be delegated to individual states. And the cost of maintaining this monolithic government has grown too large. It's now beginning to starve itself as the inflow of money from the bottom begins to dry up. It must shrink to manageable size in order to continue effectively. Obama and his people have been no better at making that happen than Bush and his people were before him. EVERY administration since FDR has managed to increase the size, complexity and power of the federal government, at the expense of the individual states.

So yeah, change has to come. I just don't believe it will ever come from politicians.