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Powers are not "reserved" to the federal government. They are granted. This is an important distinction because the federal government does not innately have an
by jimmyk 16y ago
Powers are not "reserved" to the federal government. They are granted. This is an important distinction because the federal government does not innately have any powers so it does not make sense to say that some power is reserved to it in this context. It is the same way with states, but since the states ceded some of their powers (which had previously been granted to them by the people, who are considered to be the ultimate source of the powers by the predominant philosophy of the founders) to the federal government it makes sense to say that the states reserved some of their powers.
Also, the mandates you speak of should be looked at for what they are: loopholes. The federal government was not granted the power to explicitly set (for example) the legal age of alcohol consumption, so it used the loophole to effectively give itself that power. So the guidelines should never work. When the federal government tells the states to follow guidelines, they should be allowed to say "shove it" without being punished because the federal government was never given the power to set those guidelines in the first place.
- rprasad 16y agoI don't think you understand how mandates work. If the federal government has the direct power to issue a mandate in the context, it does so, states' be damned. If the federal government does not have the direct power to issue laws in the context, it uses the power of the purpose to convince states to play along as a condition of receiving federal funds. The states can receive without punishment, they simply can't receive the contingent federal funds. That happens a lot in practice. By the way: the legal age of consumption is imposed on the states through this latter method. The federal government, as you point out, doesn't actually have the right to impose a legal age of booze on wholly-intrastate lanes of commerce. So, it makes receiving federal funds for roadway/transit construction and maintenance contingent on setting a legal age equal to or higher than the federal "mandate".
- jimmyk 16y agoI know how mandates work. I was just coming up short for a better word. You haven't really said anything I didn't already know, (possibly because you didn't think I understood the point, which is fine. I didn't do a good job saying what I meant), but I will respond to one statement. "The states can receive (refuse?) without punishment, they simply can't receive the contingent federal funds." This isn't really true, in my opinion. They really are punishing the states. The money they are willing to give out in exchange for cooperation does not originate with the federal government, it originates with the people of the states. By taxing the people, they are depriving the states of revenue. By not giving it back because they are not cooperating, they really are punishing them.