Federalism And Questions To Government

Federalism is helpful and complicated. In the 1780s, colonies turned into individual states using one of two methods. Most states chose to organize their union with unitary government and the remainder chose confederation. Although none of these methods was a great approach for America. This was the start of a new generation of power between government and states.

All states want and have different goals towards regulations. The advantage of this is that states are open to listening to citizen's needs and desires. States won’t need to focus on policies at a national level. Laws can be tailored down to satisfy the citizens of the state. Other benefit directly impacts local citizens which are things like protection and marriage rights. The third advantage is being innovative. States can try different things and get results at once versus waiting for the entire nation to get one result from a new policy. This process is also known as diffusion.

The advantages of National policy consist of fairness. States would all have identical policies and regulations. Resources can also be distributed equally among the nation. There would also be a better process set into place whenever there are problems within each state. Instead of having one state managing the problem differently with slightly different goals, all states would follow a similar process to recovery. This method would save time and resources since every state will have identical processes and regulations. But it wouldn’t look like a “free” nation if America practiced this. There wouldn’t be any freedom of choice or liberty to have changed unless the entire nation agreed to the change.

All states want and have different goals towards regulations. The advantage of this is that states are more responsive to citizen's needs and desires. States won’t need to focus on policies at a national level. Citizens in each state have a voice and an opportunity to have changed. Other benefit directly impacts local citizens which are things like protection and marriage rights. The third advantage is being innovative. States can try different things and get results at once versus waiting for the entire nation to get one result from a new policy. This process is also known as diffusion. An example of this is when cannabis was first legalized in Colorado. Other states were not willing to test this new law and were willing to see how it would turn out for Colorado. Then, states like Nevada saw the benefits of legalizing cannabis as well and moved forward with it.

A federal government might seem like there is an existing conflict between each level of government. It is not necessarily true. There are concurrent powers where governments have the authority and state government, such as the power to tax residents for different reasons. Each state also has full faith and credit to recognize and uphold laws passed by other states. For example, even though a state might not agree with same-sex policies, they still have to respect their laws on the same topic.

All in all, federalism has bought up some interesting questions about our government. Do we trust each level and are they all equally managing their power to help their citizens? Or are the layers complicated the process with getting things done such as passing bills or managing federal money? It has been a lot of trial and error and a perfect system can only be born after executing and adjustments. This topic also ties back to freedom. States have choices to make and ways to make America better as a whole.