Cooperative Federalism Research Paper

As citizens of the United States we exist under a federal system of government. There are different levels of the system, each cooperating with the next and each having some form of formal authority over the people. The age long argument has been: “more state power is most effective – no, more federal power is most effective”. There are also those who believe that an equal cooperation between both state and federal governments, our current way of separating power, is the most effective. So where should the line be drawn and which is most effective? The Constitution gave us a basic outline for how we should run our government. The bottom line is cooperative federalism – powers and policy assignments are shared between states and the national government and they may also share costs, administration, and even blame for programs that work poorly (Edwards 81). The idea of cooperative federalism has raised an important question: Where do the boundaries of national government end and where do the boundaries of state governments begin? The tenth amendment has somewhat of an answer to where the state boundaries begin. It says that if a state is not given a power directly by the constitution but is not prohibited from using that power then it is the state’s right to use and regulate that power. As for the
First and foremost if a state decided not to follow the requirements of expanding Medicaid, the burden of an unfunded mandate would rest on the shoulders of its citizens and its government. The same would go for the Clean Air Act. This may even be worse considering the point of the Clean Air Act is to keep our air clean. Without the cooperation of the states we don’t have clean air and without clean air we have sickness and unhealthy conditions for our citizens. This being said cooperation is extremely important between the levels of