Chapter 5

Name
Date
Federalism and State policies- Chapter 5
Federalism is a political system constituting both local government units and the national government. The final decision under federalism is made by involving some governmental authorities. It is also a political structure that unites smaller ideologies by ensuring that power is distributed among the small and major national system in a country. Chapter 5 provides several arguments on federalism in the United States, for instance, federalism helps protect the minority against the tyranny by ensuring the government structure incorporates even the opposite and rival ideologies. The chapter criticizes Republican principles as lacking enough protection to an individual’s liberty and believes that Federalism provides policy diversity in the entire state as it aims at reducing conflicts, disperse power, and enhance political participation. With this, it encourages new policies to improve the efficiency of the government.
American federalism has changed for over two centuries with the national government benefiting in terms of gaining power. Coercive Federalism entails Washington directing its mandates to the government while leaving the traditional matters to the states. Representational federalism, on the contrary, believes that there isn’t separation of duties between the national government and the states. Power has been concentrated in the government for long and not the states due to the huge financial resources required by the national government to support the entire United States.

These States are required to follow federal laws for them to get federal funding. Due to this, the states have relied on the federal aid that makes up over a quarter of both the states and local government revenues.
Federalism has also enjoyed some revival over the years for instance; the Congress has strengthened this kind of ruling by guaranteeing cash assistance and devolution of duties to the states. The Congress has also put some conditions on the States concerning temporary assistance to the needy families. Various decisions have also strengthened federalism in that the Supreme Court has limited the strength of government as it gives authorities. The federal preemption of powers also seems to have been justified under the Supremacy Clause. The powers of the Congress can be fully preempted in that no state regulations can be allowed or at times it can be partially preempted by allowing state laws that do not clash with the federal law.
The states have also tried to resist the federal attempts to control their powers in a number of areas. For instance, the states did not agree with the requirement by the federal that all citizens acquire health insurance. In this chapter, opponents of federalism argue that it gives the special interests to secure positions of privileges that can frustrate the policies of the government. Distributing the costs of running a government can hurt the poorer parts of the country thus diminishing national goals. But due to the Supreme Court ruling the requirement was made constitutional as per the Congress taxing powers.
The federal laws banned marijuana use, but most of the states passed their own laws allowing the use of marijuana on the medical grounds and recreational purposes. Even with such approvals by the states, the US Justice did not intervene. In conclusion, there exists a considerable variation of policies among the 50 states for instance; the tax burdens and educational expenses vary from states to states among other policies in those states.