The Federal Government's Supremacy Over State Governments

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Before the Constitution was introduced, the federal government did not have any power over the states or the country. After Constitution was ratified, the power of the federal government has increased respectively to the power of the states. In the Constitution, there are several clauses and acts that helped expand the federal power over time. One of the clauses that helped the government was the Taxing and Spending Clause, located in Article I, Section 8. The clause allows the federal government to tax citizens of the United States. Under the Articles of Confederation, the government had no power to lay and collect taxes, and had to rely on the demands of the governments of the states. Seeing that Congress had no power to independently raise its revenues, they proposed the Taxing and Spending Clause. Even if the government had the power tax citizens, they did not use it to only raise revenue, but they also taxed to regulate the commerce, taxed to discourage or suppress the commerce, or set tariffs to protect domestic markets from foreign control. On the case of United States v. Butler, the Supreme Court ruled that Congress did not have the power to impose tax due to the Agricultural Adjustment Act and deemed it unconstitutional because it attempted to regulate state activity, thus violating the Tenth Amendment. Regardless of its ruling, the case declared that the government did, in fact, have a wider power to tax, but there were limitations. In another court case, South Dakota v. Dole, the Supreme Court declared that it was constitutional due to the fact that the states' highway funds were withheld if they did not raise their legal drinking age to 21 years old. This would bring more power to the federal government due to forc... ... middle of paper ... ...n, reserving them the right to shut down a facility or issue a fine if the company refuses to adhere to the regulations of the act. By the 1990s, the act was amended to ensure legal procedures to reduce the chances of acid rain. When Congress first started the Clean Air Act, it was what began the environmental movement, and is now considered one of the landmark pieces of legislation. As a result of these clauses and acts in the Constitution, the federal government has been able to expand and widen its power over the United States over time. When under the Article, government did not have the power to impose taxes or carry out federal law, whereas compared to when the Constitution was ratified, bringing a federal government that had power over its people, but with restrictions. Without these clauses and acts, the federal government would not become what it is today.

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