Federal And State Governments
Chase Williams
PBAD 200-1203A
7/16/2012
The federal and state governments have a lot of power over us, but we have regulations in place to protect us. The type of government we have is called “federalism” or shared governement between national and state governments. This is the opposite of(Robert Longley, 2012) “centralized” governments, such as those in England and France, under which national government maintains total power. Each state has its’ own constitution but it has to comply with the U.S. constitution.
The powers of the federal government that are exclusive to it are: print money, delcare war, establish an army and a navy, enter into treaties with foreign governments, regulate commerce between states and international trade, establish post offices and issue postage, and make laws necessary to enforce the constitution. The federal government has the power to print bills and coins. They have the power to decide if we are at war or not, for example Afghanistan is not a war it is a campaign, congress did not declare war on Afghanistan. It has the ability to establish an army and a navy to protect the united states and its’ allies. The fedral government has the sole power to enter into a treaty such as the one with the other nations that are in the UN. It has the power to put agencies in charge of laws such as the(Robert Longley, 2012) FDA and OSHA. The Federal government has the power to establish post offices anywhere needed and issue postage across the nation. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people, this is the limitation of the federal government.
