1989]                              AMPLIFYING THE TENTH AMENDMENT                       919

 

of popular opinion in shaping public policy at the state and local level30 and the state's ability to protect the political liberty of its people.31

Third, centralization increases the ability of the federal government to tax state and local governments. This not only directly increases their cost of operation, but also allows for taxes that are not clearly visible to the taxpayer.32 Simply stated, by imposing federal taxes on state and local governmental enterprise activities, on payroll, or on bond revenue, the administrative cost of government increases.33 This increase in administrative cost is then reflected in the taxes its electorate must pay to finance that state or local government.34 The taxpayer, however, cannot observe the federal tax contained in the state or local tax. As a result, the federal government costs the taxpayer more than his yearly federal income tax suggests.

While centralization may produce some undesirable results,35 it also yields benefits in specific regulatory areas, such as in the enforcement of civil rights and in efforts to protect the environment.36 The issue, then, is determining which government should perform the regulatory activity.37

    Previous < 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 > Next 


Id.

30. Kaden, Politics, Money, and State Sovereignty: The Judicial Role, 79 COLUM. L. REV. 847, 853-54 (1979) (from 1936 to 1976, Congress expanded its power, entered into vast spending programs, and imposed conditions upon state and local governments with the firm approval of the federal judiciary).

31. Id. at 886. "It may be safely received as an axiom in our political system, that the State governments will, in all possible contingencies, afford complete security against invasions of the public liberty by the national authority." THE FEDERALIST NO. 28, at 179 (A. Hamilton) (J. Cooke ed., 1961). See generally Brennan, State Constitutions and the Protection of Individual Rights, 90 HARV. L. REV. 489 (1977) (state constitutions, in many cases, extend greater rights to their citizens than the United States Constitution and those states appear willing to enforce them); Feldman & Abney, The Double Security of Federalism: Protecting Individual Liberty Under the Arizona Constitution, 20 ARIZ. ST. L. J. 115 (1988) (the Arizona State Constitution provides more rights in certain areas than the United States Constitution and the State of Arizona is prepared to enforce them). Ideally, the most effective democracy occurs at state and local levels of government, where people with firsthand knowledge of local problems have more ready access to the public officials responsible for addressing them. Garcia, 469 U.S. at 575 n. 18 (Powell, J., dissenting). Furthermore, the proportion of people actually involved in the political process tends to be greater in the lower levels of government. Id, (quoting ADVISORY COMMISSION ON INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS, CITIZEN PARTICIPATION IN THE AMERICAN FEDERAL SYSTEM 95 (1980)). In contrast, federal officials are generally not as accessible and responsive as those who occupy analogous positions in state and local governments. The Framers understood that accessibility and accountability would insure the preservation and vitality of the federal system and the ability of the states to operate under a republican form of government. Garcia, 469 U.S. at 579 (Powell, J., dissenting).

32. Baker, 108 S. Ct. at 1371 (O'Connor, J., dissenting); New York v. United States, 326 U.S. 572, 592-94 (1946) (imposing taxes on the states increases their cost of operation and may either result in increased taxes on the people or a reduction of services); Maryland v. Wirtz, 392 U.S. 183, 202-03 (1968) (Douglas, J., dissenting) (quoting Judge Northrop in his dissent below and who stated that increasing the costs of operations to the states would involuntarily increase the taxes on the people).

33. Baker, 108 S. Ct. at 1371 (0*Connor, J., dissenting). Justice O'Connor concluded that taxing state and local bond revenues could increase the costs of government by 28-35%. Id.

34. Id. at 1372 (O'Connor, J., dissenting).

35. See generally supra note 13.

36. Schwartz, A New Banner for State's Rights, A.B.A.J. May 1, 1979 at 43, 105. According to Schwartz, the real goals for those in favor of state's rights is to undermine the progress made in civil rights, reducing pollution in the environment, and others. Id.

37. "[S]hould the states or the federal government perform the proposed task?" See De Grazia, supra note 29, at 228. "Federalism is a way of ordering human relations that gives final authority on some questions to governments of areas smaller than the whole union. It contains a division of functions. It guarantees this division and more by a form of pluralism in which autonomous groups are based on geography. It is a form a decentralism with special powers of initiative and veto

Previous < 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 > Next