Essay on How Does Cooperative Federalism Work in the United States

In our system of government, we are bound to have collective action problems. Firstly, a collective action problem is where individuals can succeed in a situation if they work together on a common goal. But ultimately fails because of conflict or disagreement between other individuals in the group that discourages how they want to work the situation out, resulting in an even worse outcome for their common goal. Some examples of the different types of collective action problems we have are the Tragedy of the Commons and the Prisoner’s Dilemma. To start, the Tragedy of the Commons is where an individual overconsumes a shared resource system for their self-interest. This results in the common good being overused and spoiled for an individual’s collective action. One very real example of this in our world is sustainability. But some other problems it faces is the overuse of water, fishing, and non-renewable resources such as oil and coal. Because of the overuse of our resources, our planet is unable to run properly which could result in killing our planet as a whole. However, the government overcomes these types of challenges with simple solutions like having property rights. Property rights are one of the more common solutions that allow property owner to do what they want with their resources. Having property rights can benefit the planet by saving endangered species or resources that are scarce. But most property rights come from ideas, and by having an idea, it can be put to good use. Allowing people to have property rights for their ideas, results in individuals putting more time and effort into new medicines or technology that can benefit society. However, property rights are costly because it also takes time and effort to enforce these property rights like settling disputes or violations. These are what we call transaction costs and conformity costs. To continue, the Prisoner’s Dilemma happens whenever individual members of a large organization can enjoy the benefits brought by others whether or not that individual has contributed to the cause. But this doesn’t happen if there is coercion which makes an individual act in their common interest. For successful bargaining to be easy, the two parties have to come to a common agreement and have to rely on keeping their word. This connects back to the prisoner’s dilemma where for every individual to benefit, they must agree on a common interest for the bargain to be successful. But it can be difficult if the other individual doesn’t follow through on their side of the agreement for self-interests. An example of the Prisoner’s Dilemma and successful bargaining is when two individuals are being put in prison for robbery, but they have two options. The individuals are given a choice of either to confess or do the crime which results in one being set free and the other being thrown in prison for 10 years, and vice-versa. But if they both say nothing, they will both get less time in prison. But if they both say something, then they both will do double the amount of years. This is what is called the Prisoner’s Dilemma but to avoid a situation like this, the two criminals must agree to not say anything, in which they will both benefit from the situation and keep their word. But it can be difficult if one of the other individuals lies about their word and rats on the other to be free, resulting in making a successful bargain difficult.

The Constitution had a lot of principles within it that still shape this nation today. The constitution consisted of seven main principles. The first was popular sovereignty which deals with the government getting its power from its citizens. The people were the ones voting and agreeing on what they wanted in the nation and what they wanted to enforce. The second was limited government which deals with having the government not control their citizens' lives for the government to not have extreme power. This ties in with popular sovereignty on how giving the power to the people can give a successful nation. The third is the Separation of Powers. Our government is split into three branches, the Legislative branch which makes all the laws from Congress to the House of Representatives. The Executive branch is where all the laws are either enforced or passed. And the Judicial branch is for the people who break the law. We split these branches to not give anyone too much power in a branch. Not only does it break down the power from each branch, but the branches also have what is called Checks and Balances, this is the fourth principle. They do this by either stopping laws they are trying to pass or stopping any idea they dislike coming from the other branches. Judicial Review is the fifth principle that connects back to Checks and Balances. The Judicial Review allows the Judicial branch to stop any kind of corrupt law that doesn’t fit the rules from passing in the Constitution. The sixth principle is Republicanism. Republicanism is mainly a political ideology that believes the people have the power in government and don’t let the government overthrow them. And the seventh principle is Federalism. Federalism is what the United States is today. It is having the states and government banded together to pass laws and spread power equality, despite sometimes having the government overrule the decisions of the state. While the founding fathers were constructing the Constitution, they ran into some issues. One of the main issues they faced was how much power should be given to the government. The second was how states should be represented in the government and legislation. And third, was the representing equality among everyone in the United States. But once the constitution was finished, the United States built this as the baseline for the nation which consisted of the principles of democracy. These principles of democracy were known as having a political system that involves fair elections in the government, active participation from their citizens in the world of politics, human rights in which the government can grant protection for their citizens, and finally the rule of law where each law is enforced and applied to every citizen equally. After taking a closer look at the Constitution and what it consists of, the only thing I would change to be more democratic is probably the Second Amendment where we have the right to bear arms. With the current media climate and recent news of shootings and deaths, I would change into having no right to bear arms since it’s only meant to hurt people.

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The United States Constitution provides power to both the national and state governments but over time, the federal government grew in power over the states, leaving the states at a bit of a disadvantage. Both national and state governments have powers like regulating commerce internal to each state. But because of the Constitution, they give a bit more power to the national government where they handle legislative, executive, and judicial powers from those three branches. The only kind of power the states have is the power to create schools and/or local governments. As you can see, there is not much of a balance with both the national and state governments. But another main reason why the national government grew more than the states was the involvement of Federalism in the Constitution. As we know, the Consitution had lots of articles that involved giving power to the national and state governments. However, most of the articles were for the national government, especially Article 1, section 8. These sections consisted of the supremacy clause, expressed power, Implied power, powers denied to the states and commerce clause. The two that mainly affected the power of the states were the powers denied to them in Article 1, section 10, and the commerce clause. Section 10 is self-explanatory as to what states can’t do like ally with another country. However, the commerce clause acted as a barrier by the Supreme Court to limit the federal government's powers. It soon shifted when the great depression happened, giving total power to the national government and putting more people in the Supreme Court. But because of the great depression, helped increase federal actions like grants-in-aid and the New Deal. Grants-in-aid are the funds provided by the federal government to a state or local government for a specific purpose like categorical and formal grants. The New Deal expanded on grants-in-aid which now includes social programs. However, federalism changed over time in the United States. Before when the government first started, we had what was called Dual Federalism where the national government and state government were kept on their level. This kind of federalism was seen as a “layer cake” where each section is its own section. But over time, Dual Federalism became Cooperative Federalism where national federalism and state federalism cooperate on some policies together. This kind of federalism is seen as “marble cake”.

Congress can represent the American people in a lot of ways. One thing we have to remember is that Congress does not pass laws by itself. They need the vote and opinion of the American people to pass the law or not, the elected a president or a person to the government. This is one way Congress represents the American people. Another way is through the Senate and House where they are divided between Democrats and Republicans. This works in the sense that the American people are also either Democrats or Republicans. But the American people seem to not like Congress too much because of how gridlock it is. This means that it’s difficult to pass any sort of law because it doesn’t satisfy the people’s opinions. This only happens when the political parties can’t agree with one another in the house or the different branches. So when the party control has slim margins of control, it’s ultimately going to equal gridlock once again. Another reason the American people have a low opinion of Congress is party polarization. This is where a person will only agree or disagree on an issue, policy, or law because of the political party they’re in. It’s already known to us that in Congress, Democrats will always side with Democrats and Republicans will always side with Republicans. If there’s party polarization, then there’s gridlock, which means that not many laws are being passed in Congress. The whole people are to give power to the American people since they are the ones deciding which laws they want to enforce or agree on. We know that to have a successful government, it needs to come with compromise and agreement from the other parties to avoid gridlock or any type of disagreement. But we rarely get to this point in Congress because of the Prisoner’s Dilemma and collective action problems. The people will always have their own opinions they side with rather than siding with a compromise that will benefit both parties. Another way to put it is that Congress is filled with self-interested people. Of course, some want to make a change in the laws and policies they pass but the people who have more self-interest are the ones affecting those of change because it doesn’t fit in their political view. In conclusion, we can easily come to a compromise with everything that is brought up in Congress and have a better Government for that matter. But the people in Congress choose not to because it affects their party and self-interest if they do so, which in my opinion is quite sad since we won’t ever get to our full potential as a government and as a nation.