WNDI 2008 1

Federalism Adv Addendum

Federalism Adv Addendum

Federalism Adv Addendum..........................................................................................................1
Economy internals.........................................................................................................................2
Competitiveness internal ..............................................................................................................3
Federalism key to plan solvency – flexibility and efficiency .....................................................4
AT: Permutation............................................................................................................................5
WNDI 2008 2
Federalism Adv Addendum

Economy internals
Link, federalism is key to the Economy
Jan K. Brueckner Department of Economics University of California, Irvine 3151 Social
Science Plaza Irvine, CA 92697 e-mail: jkbrueck@uci.edu October 2005
The analysis shows that federalism, which allows public-good levels to be tailored to
suit the differing demands of young and old consumers, who live in different
jurisdictions, increases the incentive to save. This stronger incentive in turn leads to
an increase in investment in human capital, and a byproduct of this higher
investment is faster economic growth.
WNDI 2008 3
Federalism Adv Addendum

Competitiveness internal
Link, Federalism improves competitiveness through decentralization.
Steven G. Calabresi, Associate Professor, Northwestern University School of Law Michigan Law Review
December, 1995, 94 Mich. L. Rev. 752
Improved Quality of Governmental Decisionmaking and Administration can be acheived. Decentralized
governments make better decisions than centralized ones for reasons additional to the whip they feel from
competition. Decentralization ensures that "those responsible for choosing a given social policy are made aware of
the costs of that policy." This helps ensure a more informed weighing of costs and benefits than often occurs at
the national level where taxpayers often may be less cognizant of the social costs of particular legislation.
WNDI 2008 4
Federalism Adv Addendum

Federalism key to plan solvency – flexibility and efficiency

Federalism allows for flexibility in the local sector and is more adaptable than the central
government.
Steven G. Calabresi, Associate Professor, Northwestern University School of Law Michigan Law Review
December, 1995, 94 Mich. L. Rev. 752
Responsiveness to Local Tastes and Conditions. The opening argument for state power lets social tastes and
preferences differ, that those differences correlate significantly with geography, and that social utility can be
maximized if governmental units are small enough and powerful enough so that local laws to be adapted to
local conditions, something the national government, with its uniform lawmaking power, is largely unable to do. n66
Consider Professor McConnell’s theory, federalism can produce, at least in some admittedly abstract situations, a
net gain in social utility. This lends credence to the argument made above that federalism sometimes can alleviate
the problem of raw majority rule, the key problem generated by democratic government.

Less budget and more efficiency is guaranteed on the state level of jurisdiction.
Steven G. Calabresi, Associate Professor, Northwestern University School of Law Michigan Law Review
December, 1995, 94 Mich. L. Rev. 752
In addition and just as importantly, governmental agency costs often is lower at the state level than at the
national level because monitoring costs may be lower where fewer programs, employees, and amounts of tax
revenue are involved. The smaller size of the state governmental jurisdictions thus makes it far easier for
citizens to exercise a greater and more effective degree of control over their government officials. For this
reason, it often makes sense to lodge dangerous and intrusive police powers over crime and over controversial social
issues in the states where government officials may be monitored more easily by the citizenry.
WNDI 2008 5
Federalism Adv Addendum

AT: Permutation
Cooperation federalism worsens action’s efficiency and results in conflicting sovereignties.
Redish, Pmkssor of Law Northwestern Lniiiriitj School of Lam 1985. (Martin H.; "Supreme Court Review of
State Court "Federal" Decisions: A Study in Interactive Federalism", Gcorgia Law Review, 19 Ga. L. Rev. 861,
I1.D.)
As Professor Corwin's description of the concept indicates, dual federalism is generally assumed to imply an
inherent equality between the two distinct sovereigns in the federal system. Thus, any rejection of dual federalism
in favor of some form of cooperative federalism is thought, at least potentially, to permit a reduction in state
power relative to that of the federal government. Of course, if one includes as an essential element of the
definition of dual federalism the equal stature of the competing sovereigns, then to suggest that the concept
inherently requires equality amounts to a tautology. But, if one instead focuses upon the abstract nature of the
state-federal relation under the structures of both dual and co-operative federalism, then it is by no means clear
that viewing the two sovereigns as distinct and antagonistic entities with discrete jurisdictions necessarily
provides greater power to the states than does a system in which the two sovereigns interact substantially in
the exercise of their often concurrent jurisdictions.

Co-operative federalism fails by destroying public accountability

Roderick Hills, Assistant Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School, “The Political Economy of
Cooperative Federalism: Why State Autonomy Makes Sense and "Dual Sovereignty" Doesn't” 96 Mich. L. Rev. 813,
February 1998
Indeed, one should go further: all intergovernmental arrangements under which state officials carry out
federal law ought to be suspect, because all such arrangements have the potential to confuse voters
about the ultimate responsibility for some policy decision. Martha Derthick provides a detailed illustration
of this danger in her account of the public assistance program in Massachusetts. The federal Bureau of Public
Assistance demanded in the late 1940s that the state welfare commissioner exclude nonprofessional officials
from administering federal welfare grants in Massachusetts. The federal agency, however, did not openly tell
the state legislature that it would forfeit federal funds if the state did not change its system of having part-
time selectmen administer public assistance, because such overt threats might have made the federal agency
"vulnerable to congressional intervention." Instead, the federal agency counted on the state agency to act as
its proxy with the state legislature. The state agency would warn that federal funds might be terminated,
while the federal agency remained discreetly in the background expressing no opinion on the issue directly to
the state legislature. When speaking directly to the state legislature, federal agency officials were more
circumspect in order to assure Congress and the general public that the federal agency was not meddling in
state affairs. This practice of using state officials to inform state legislators of federal program requirements
led to considerable confusion about exactly who was responsible for imposing requirements on the state. The
powerful Massachusetts senator, Henry Cabot Lodge, forwarded complaints from taxpayers' groups to federal
agencies, which then sent them along to the state agency that was directly responsible for promulgating the
controversial regulations, which would, in turn, cite the requirements of federal law. In the end, as Derthick
notes, "responsibility is hard to fix because it is shared: when the federal administration compels the
state agency to issue a rule, but when the state agency drafts the rule and has some measure of
discretion as to its content, both have, but can deny, responsibility for the consequences."