chapter 3

1.)    I do believe that a strong national government is necessary and that the majority of the power and big decision making should be held by the national government.  If state governments had equal or more powers than the national government, then states would become selfish and put their own individual states needs before that of the nation as a whole. The unity of the individual states is also important for other reason such as military necessity.

2.)    The onset of the Great Depression power began to shift to the national government because the entire nation was in a poor economic state and the people wanted action and aid from national government.  When the nation began to come out of the Depression and at the beginning of the Nixon administration, powers began to flow back to the state governments, again as it rightly should have. At that time, after the nation’s foundation as a whole was stable with Nixon and Reagan administrations, we began to practice New Federalism.  The main idea behind New Federalism and general revenue sharing and block grants, was that the states could more efficiently spend governmental resources where that specific states needed it better than the national government could.  This shift was very necessary in my opinion. During the great depression, we suffered a national crisis which called for unity and a strong national government to fix the issue. After these issues were resolved, power began to shift back to the states where it had originally lied so that the states could solve state issues and leave large matters that affected the entire nation to the national government.

3.)    I believe that national, state, and local governments should all aid and support education financially and in other ways, but the authority to regulate education should lie with the national government. Education or what is taught in our schools should not be regulated or determined by individual states or local governments.  I believe that the same curriculum taught in Tennessee schools should be taught in California schools – all schools within the nation should have the same curriculum or syllabus. This way all state educational systems are on the same page and our children are all learning the same material regardless of race, creed, gender, or social standing.  Every child deserves not only the best education that we as a nation can provide but they also deserve an equal opportunity education and that can be achieved through facilitating a national curriculum.