Federal System in America

The interpretation of the intent behind the U.S Constitution was to create a balanced harmony between all states and the central government to enable the creation of a strong national government. Federalism was created under the Constitution to ensure that power between state and federal governments would be shared but restricted to each. The federal system was enacted to allow the state and federal government to impose different powers of laws and rights to the citizens of America. Framers guaranteed to citizens that both enumerated powers and reserved powers would allow protection to individual liberties while enabling a strong federal government to the whole nation (, Krutz, Waskiewicz, 2016, The Constitution and its Origins).

Institutional power and constraints were placed for state, and national governments. The national and state governments carry out the responsibilities of the entire nation under three branches, the judicial, executive and legislative branches. To balance the diverse needs between the federal systems each federal system has two levels, the state and national government.

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The federal government serves the countries responsibilities by supporting the nation with the power to print money, declare war on other nations and challenge state laws. The state government carries out the duties of taxation levels, education standards and the distribution of licenses. With the adequate right for citizens to vote a leader for each level, the levels maintain flexibility of values and equality within states and federal powers. Although this strict dual federal system was established there are many drawbacks and rewards to the divided power between the state and federal government.

The Commerce commission made by the Supreme Court allowed that no state and federal government could mess with business. There were no laws on businesses and no federal system could try to enact them because of this clause. Since the state government had jurisdiction in more areas than the federal government, limitations in federal government were strict. Changes for the federal government and federalism did not occur until the Great Depression (Krutz, Waskiewicz, 2016, American Federalism).

With the evolution of people and society comes the evolution of states and government. The powers of state and federal governments have overlapped and mixed with each other in the early twenty-first century of America. While national and state governments have their own exclusive powers, they now share concurrent powers. This cooperative federalism joins states, and local governments to retain national goals under the national government. All federal systems rely solely on revenue to achieve public action for education, war and other responsibilities’ in that states and the nation. Through grants the federal government gives states and local governments money to create certain policies that the national government wants. One level of government cannot attain national or state goals without the other level. Cooperative federalism gave tools for more protection of the people with Medicaid, social security, education opportunities and voting rights with some regulations (Krutz, Waskiewicz, 2016, American Federalisim).

New Federalism was prompted by Reagan and Nixon, there ideals were to bring back the old ways of federalism, with allowing more power to the states. With little restrictions on how the money funds were spent by state and local governments and they enforced their own regulations, which was known as devolution. Members of Congress rejected Nixon’s efforts to bring certain programs to the lower state governments due to funds (Krutz,Wakiewicz, 2016, American Federalism).

Today in America we are under the cooperative federalism with regulations. The federal government allows states grants for different policies. The federal government may or may not give money for this policies or rules, but the states must follow these mandates. Due to evolution there have been more confrontations between the states and the federal government to accomplish priorities nationally. Immigration has caused a concurrent power between state and federal levels. The federal government decides who can come and stay in the country, while states have taken a greater role in immigration policies. The states have been handling the services and concerns of local immigration. While the federal government has enforced laws and bills for illegal immigrants. This is an example of cooperative federalism in today’s government. Federalism has allowed states to be a part of innovation and share its viewpoints in the country, but it has also caused social disputes that did not help the nation fix its problems. Federalism may have its advantages and disadvantages, but it has ultimately structured the public government ( Krutz, Waskiewicz, 2016, American Federalism ).