Description
Questions
1. The Role of Washington
The United States Constitution specifically delegates to the states any powers that are not enumerated to Washington. In practice, however, Washington has a vast number of tools it uses to influence state policy, often involving granting – or withholding – funding to the states for a variety of initiatives. Citing the text, provide a two to three paragraph response about your views of Federalism today. Do you believe that Washington has taken the lead in policy creation and implementation? Do you think that states are, in practice, beholden to Washington because of the funding that they depend upon from the central government? Or, on the contrary, do you think that the states maintain a great deal of power and autonomy in our Federalism system? Provide examples, when relevant, to support your analysis.
2. States as Policy Laboratories
It has often been noted by scholars that the fifty states are policy laboratories that craft and implement public policies that are very specific and relevant to their state populations. In many cases, these experiments sometimes rise to the level of becoming a national policy because Congress will use them as model legislation. Describe any specific policies within your state that have been crafted in response to unique circumstances in your state. For example, Louisiana has fashioned many new policies involving emergency responsiveness since Hurricane Katrina, and California has many unique policies concerning the environment that are not found in other states. Provide a brief review of one policy in your state that you find interesting.
Explanation & Answer
Running Head: PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
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Public administration
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PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
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Despite American government being a characteristically dominated by cooperative
feudalism, there is a persistence of national supremacy elements, state’s rights, and dual fideism.
The current situation can, therefore, be regarded as balanced federalism. Cooperation
relationship between state government and the national government a is specifically rooted in a
transfer of payments done from the national government to government in lower levels, which is
referred to as fiscal feudalism (Bednar, 2009). There are mainly two types of grants which are
block grants and categorical grants. This is a federal aid which is spent by states within a given
policy area, although with much state discretion. General revenue sharing (GRS) was used back
in the 1970s and 1980s.GRS awarded the state maximum control over policies, but gaining
political support was difficult for them.
The new federalism started with Richard Nixon term of presidency. The new federalism
tried to move power to the state by bringing together categorical grants to form block grants and
give states power over programs which include welfare among others (Chhibber & Kollman,
2009). The practice gained support from president Regan, he believed that local politicians and
states were in close contact with the people and they would know their needs better and how to
spend on them.
Under the rule of President Clinton, unfunded mandates were made difficult to impose by
the Congress. Federal laws required that the state should do certain things but not to facilitate
state governments with funds to implement the policies. Despite the changes being favorable to
states, it did not change the balance of power between state and national government. Coercive
feudalism rose de...
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