Question

What are the advantages of a federal system? What are the disadvantages?

Answer 1

Advantages:

• 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 citidzen needs, and respond to them, than the national government would be.
• Disadvantages
• had a History of Protecting Slavery and Segregation –This is often cited as one of the main detriments of the system of federalism that we have in this country, that since slavery was a state issue, it was something that could not be removed on the national level.
• It Allows for Inequalities Between Different States – For example, instead of education funding throughout the country being the same, since it is a state issue, some states will spend more, per capita, on education than other states, causing what could be considered a disparity. The same goes for other things, as well, such as taxes, health care programs, and welfare programs.
• The Blockage of Nationalist Policies by States – States can fight against the existence of certain national laws by challenging them in court, or going out of their way to not enforce those national laws, or even deliberately obstructing enforcement of national laws.
• Racing to the Bottom – One argument given is that states will compete with each other in an oppositional way, by reducing the amount of benefits they give to welfare recipients compared to, say, a neighboring state, motivating the undesirables to go to the neighboring state, thereby reducing their welfare costs even more. This reduction of state benefits to needy has been deemed the ‘race to the bottom.’