Evaluate The View That The US Is No Longer Federal Today. (30)

Federalism Definition

power is divided between a national government and state governments

AGREE 1 (no longer federal)

significant expansion of federal powers into areas traditionally controlled by states.

GWB No Child Left Behind Act introduced major changes to education policy, with the federal govt role increasing to try create uniform national standards. Education prev. controlled by states. States were required to test children annually with a uniform national test.

DISAGREE 1.1 (federal)

States retain significant control over policy.

Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organisation – states given full control over regulating abortion access. REP states e.g Texas have implemented near-total abortion bans with no exceptions. DEM states expanded abortion protections

DISAGREE 1.2 (federal)

Recent Presidents have allowed states sig control over important areas of policy

Trump left the responsibility for dealing with COVID-19 to states. DEM states implemented stricter lockdowns and mask mandates whilst REP had a more relaxed approach.

Cali mask mandate ended march 2022, Texas - march 2021.

AGREE 2

Federalism is protected by the constitution in the 10^th amendment which states all powers not given to the federal govt are reserved for the states. When federal govt oversteps the courts can step in to protect state power.

Trump 2017 issued exec order that withheld federal grants from sanctuary cities. Struck down and declared unconstitutional as it was seen as an attempt to force states to change policy when it was within their rights to have sanctuary cities.

DISAGREE 2

Constitution has been formally amended to increase federal power, reducing state autonomy

16^th amendment gave the federal govt power to impose an income tax. Prior to this, federal income tax deemed unconstitutional as it was a direct tax that didn’t spread money to the states proportionally based on population

AGREE 3

States are reliant on the federal government for around ¼ of their income, which allowed fed govt to somewhat control state policy.

Affordable Care Act, which required states to expand Medicaid coverage or lose their existing federal funding for Medicaid programmes

DISAGREE 3

Limits on the extent to which the fed govt can use its financial power to coerce states. The supreme court can step in to protect federalism.

ACAs provision that required states to expand Medicaid coverage or lose existing federal funding for medical programmes was struck down by the Supreme Court. It was declared as an “unconstitutional overreach of federal power” and as a result states could not expand Medicaid and keep their existing funding.