Arguments for Why Federalism is Beneficial:

 As a Protection Against Tyranny – One of the most important points of

federalism in dividing the power between the national government and state
governments, and spreading the national government’s power among three branches
that serve as a check and balance on each other, is that it serves as a deterrent to
tyranny and runaway power. The protections we have in our system against a
tyrannical, runaway government are one of the most important points to why the
system was designed the way it was.
 Diffusing Power – The form of federalism that we have in our country, where
power is shared with state governments, and where the federal government is
separated into three branches, serves as a means to make sure that all power is not
centralized into a single person or group of people, since excessive power among a
single group tends to be corrupting.
 Increasing Citizen Participation – By not centralizing all power into the
hands of a national government, but sharing that power with state governments,
which are closer to the level of the common citizen, our founders actually increased a
citizen’s ability to effect their government, government policy, and lawmaking.
 More Efficient – When some of the power of the government is dispersed
among the states, giving states the right to solve some of their own problems, you
allow for more efficiency within the system. To try to have a national solution to all
problems, which could be refered to as a ‘cookie-cutter method’ of law and policy
making, you end up with solutions that are more effective in some states, and less
effective in others. To allow states to create solutions to their own problems, using
policies and laws that work best in their state, means that each state can come up
with its own solution, making government more efficient.
 Conflict Management – By allowing different communities and states to
create their own policies, they allow for people with irreconcilable differences, or very
strong disagreements, to live in separate areas, and create their own solutions, or
 policies, that would be totally disagreeable to the other people in other states or
regions of the country.
 Innovation in Law and Policy is Encouraged – By allowing for many state
governments, different sets of policies can be tried, and the ones found most effective
at solving its problems can then be implemented in other states, or on the national
level. Imagine Christopher Columbus trying to get funding to voyage across the
Atlantic Ocean if there was a unified Europe back then, with its head saying ‘no!’ to
him; instead, he had several governments from which he could try to get his funding
– he got turned down by several governments before Spain gave him the okay. The
same principle applies today with our many states – something that is rejected in one
state can most likely be tried in another state, with competition leading the way,
based on effectiveness of those laws.
 State Governments Can be More Responsive to Citizen Needs – The
closer a government entity is to its citizens, the more likely it is the respond to the
needs of citizens. States are more likely to listen to citizen needs, and respond to
them, than the national government would be.

Counterarguments to the Negatives of Federalism:

 The Protection of Slavery and Segregation – My argument against this is

that the ability for a national government to share its power with state powers is a
completely separate issue than the issue of slavery – that the U.S. Constitution could
have, if our founding fathers were able to (which they weren’t), put the issue of
slavery and segregation on the national level, and eventually eliminating it nationally,
rather than the state level, all while continuing to have the national government share
power with state governments. In other words, the effectiveness of federalism is a
different issue than the issue of slavery.
 Inequalities Between States – Of course there are going to be inequalities
between states. For example, you may have a state full of people that are hard-
working and self-sufficient, who have citizens who have a philosophy of approaching
their closely-tied family members when in trouble, rather than the distant and
 impersonal government, because they don’t want to become ‘slaves’ of their
government, and so welfare benefits and tax policy will tend to be lower in that state.
There is also a tendency for politicians, when times are good, and tax revenue is
higher than state spending, to, instead of lowering taxes at that point, or putting that
extra money away for a rainy day (economic downturn), to use that surplus to create
a new government program, to motivate the voting public to want to vote him/her
back in office during the next election cycle, thus creating a culture of government
dependency, which puts them in a different boat than the lower-taxed, less-
government states.
 States Blocking National Policies – We can see that even today as we watch
states challenging the health care reform laws passed by the federal government
under President Obama and the formerly Democratic-controlled legislative branch. I
would argue that this is not a bad thing, but is, in fact, a benefit of our system of
federalism. If we had only a national government, there would be no states to
challenge what some might consider to be bad law – of course, special interest groups
have had a history of challenging laws they don’t like, so if no states were able to
challenge national law, then there would still be the chance that a special interest
group would step in and do that. In other words, I don’t see states blocking national
policies as a negative, but as a positive, as another hurdle that laws have to go
through to determine whether they are good laws or not, thereby putting another
check and balance in place hindering bad law – it doesn’t matter whether it is a
conservative state challenging liberal federal laws, or liberal states challenging
conservative federal laws.
 Racing to the Bottom – Yes, there is a competition between states that drive
them to lower taxes as much as possible, and give as many tax breaks to businesses
moving in as possible, in order to draw businesses from other states to that state.
This competition can be seen as a means to keep the taxes low, much like competition
in the free market helps to keep prices low and quality high – this same scenario can
be beneficial to state governments competing as well. As for welfare and government
programs that some states have more of than others that tend to drive up tax costs
(*see note below), like I’ve said before, these programs tend to be higher in states
where politicians have had more chance to use surplus tax revenues as a reason to
create new government programs, and thus increase the possibility to create
dependency on government, as a means to get re-elected. Whether lowering welfare
benefits causes welfare recipients to move to another state – there's really not very
much of this going on; besides, if a person doesn’t want to work, do you think they’ll
work hard to get to another state? Sometimes it’s better to force a person to go out
and get a job rather than sit on their duff and depend on government provisions – it
will help keep those people out of trouble because they’re working now, and increase
state, and federal income tax revenues, as well as sales tax revenues, while lowering
welfare expenditures.