Federalism
Federalism, a defining force in American politics, is a system of government where two or more governments share authority over the same territory. This is just the case in the United States where our national government shares power with each state to govern its citizens. Today there exists a cooperative federalist system in which its primary features include the sharing of functions between state and national governments along with exclusive powers for each as well. By sharing powers there exists a boundary to the excessiveness in which both states and the national government can exercise their power. With the shear size and diversity that is the United States it is easy to see that one single authority would not be feasible. For all voices to be heard, there needs to be an authority for the concerns of citizens that share a common area. This is where the states come into play. The constitution places all power not reserved for the federal government to be for the states in the 10th amendment. These include such powers as controlling roads, sanitation, and education (although the federal government does have some influence in education through aid for the most part it's up to the states to decide).
The national government also has its reserved powers. Since the national government collects taxes from all the states, each state wants a part of that money, at the same time however, the states usually want to conduct matters of their concern on their own. The happy medium in this whole mess is the constitution. I believe that allowing the states to deal with their own concerns allows for a more efficient government in which they can deal with their own issues, it only makes since that matters that concern all citizens and states should be reserved for the national government. Diversity will always prevail in the expression of ideas and what happens in legislation and I believe that is why our system is so revered. The officials elected by the state citizens want to stay in office, and to do this they will impose legislation that will benefit their state. The states seem to have the advantage with diversity. New York 's state government is focused on the concern of New Yorkers, rather than that of anybody else. But over time we have become witness a more shared system of government rather than 2 separate and conflicting ones. This is where the national government makes it move by offering grants and aid to the states, at the same time they demand the states to follow certain policy if they are to receive that money. This is known as pork barreling and legislators will help each other out if they are backed up in return. There are simply too many voices needed to be heard and obviously contribute to checking our authorities, and although political apathy has increased and can allow for one entity to become too powerful. The same happens for the states because state representatives could not impose too much power because it certainly would not be benefit too all the others. Different ethnicities, climates, and geography contribute to the diversity in the government.
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