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There is still the general problem that States can't make money like the feds. However State rights have been hindered by both political parties. Politically I am more of a Whig myself. Where the idea that each state has different needs, cultures, and sensitivities. Each state should have more control of what it does and what laws are passed.
The problem isn't too much regulation or too little. But regulations that are passed across a country that goes from ocean to ocean and has multiple climates from tundra to tropical, home to the worlds largest cities, and most sparse rural areas. An environmental law that works for New York, doesn't necessarily work for Alaska. Now with that being said. There still needs federal oversight as some environmental laws just because it may not work for say Pennsylvania it could negatively affect New Jersey, and the people of New Jersey are suffering from Pennslvania's actions.
 

My different recipe is Modern Whig. Libertarians are starting to scare me as much as the big two.

Sadly there was no real alternative to electing Obama.

I'd like to see the Modern Whigs gain support, if for no other reason, because one of their goals is to reform the electoral process to reduce the ill effects of our plurality voting system.

I would give you mod points if I could.

America needs to wake up and understand that there are other election systems out there. Plurality voting, which results in "lesser of two evils", is killing our ability to function politically.

I'm starting to research the Modern Whig party. One thing that interests me is that they explicitly promote the Approval Voting system. It's not the best, but is much better than Plurality while making very little change to the current ballot system.

I've really been idling my brain with the idea of finding a viable third party idea that the dissatisfied 88% of the country can get behind

How about "going for pragmatic decisions over left/right partisanship" for an idea?

These guys would be a good start for that.

How about Andre Barnett of the Modern Whigs?

http://www.modernwhig.org/

I'm starting to like these guys.. thinking about joining and becoming a 'proper' member..

Check this out.

I am 100% pro-personal freedom. That means that I fully support (in full) the first amendment, the right to keep and bear arms, etc. I think that whatever chemicals people wish to put into their own bodies is their own business, and I think that whatever happens between two legally consenting adults (whether it involves cash transfer or not) is not the governments business.

Basically, I'm mostly Libertarian oriented when it comes to personal liberties.

At the same time however, I DON'T have any problem with applying some sane regulations to businesses. Treating a huge corporation the same as a person is just nonsense IMHO. The government SHOULD have regulatory power to prevent monopolies, promote competition, and prevent stupid decisions like those that lead to the housing bubble.

I also don't mind the government providing some level of social services. Public schools, the road system, even healthcare and homeless shelters (welfare I do take some issue with. I think that people who have fallen on hard times deserve help but I think that help should be provided in the form of lodging, basic clothing, and food - not directly paid funds). I don't mind paying my fair share of taxes for those services to be provided (admission: my job is closely tied to the the calculation and collection of property taxes, so I may be biased on that issue).

It's interesting, because your views on both politics and economy seems to match mine almost precisely. I wonder how many more such (civil libertarian / economic centrist, roughly speaking) are out there.

As for the parties - out of curiosity, I once combed through the list of US third parties to see if there are any that I could support in good conscience. These guys were the only ones whom I found to sound reasonable.

There are basically no political parties that aren't, with the possible exception of the Green party (and it's possible that I simply don't know enough about their platform to see the giant flaws in it, too).

I once went through the list of currently-active U.S. political parties, to see if there are any which I wouldn't consider either extreme economic liberal / social conservative, or extreme socialist. The only one I could sympathize with was the Modern Whig Party.