About this video
The speaker defines federalism as constantly asking what should be national and what should be local, calling it the great debate in American history. Sometimes the national government must lead, as in the World Wars and the Great Depression; for some issues, like civil rights, we want a uniform national baseline, while for others, like state taxing and spending, experimentation is fine.
You'll be able to
- define federalism as the question of what should be national and what should be local.
- give examples of issues handled nationally and issues left to the states.
Key words
- federalism
- The system of sharing power between the national government and the states.
- national baseline
- A minimum standard that applies across the whole country, which states can add to.
- experimentation
- States trying different approaches to see what works, by trial and error.
Transcript
One way to think about federalism is what should be national and what should be local. In fact, I would say that is the great debate in American history. At various times, we need the national government to take the lead. Wars, World War I and World War II come to mind. The Great Depression comes to mind, but other times, it's not obvious that you want national solutions to problems that may manifest themselves, in different ways in different parts of the country. Federalism is really just constantly asking yourself what should be national and what should be local? The answer differs at various eras in American history, and it differs depending on the question at hand. No one pauses over the possibility of 51 different systems of taxing and spending. We do pause over civil rights. Some civil rights, that we say to ourselves,
we have to have one national baseline uniform protection. Maybe to be supplemented by the states. Other areas, we say experimentation is just fine, trial and error can be quite helpful.
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