You would love CA then, where the state seizes local taxes to pay state bills and the republicans rant on about lowering taxes. The cities are feeling the pinch and have to cut local services.

That's not at all what I said I wanted :)

I want trickle-up instead of trickle-down taxes, ie, the city controls the purse strings instead of the federal and state governments.

I know. I was being deliberately obtuse. Imperial China had what you were talking about and it was institutionalized corruption.

The federal government was funded by the states under the Articles of Confederation. The states didn't give enough money to fund the government, so they got rid of it and created a federal government that could collect its own taxes.

Federalism works when when the governmental bodies involved function within the boundaries of the rules that have been set out for them via, for instance, a constitution. This rarely happens. It's still better than the alternatives.