Advantages and Disadvantages of Federalism

American Government
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In federalism, the national government and lower level governments such as states share political power. It is a political system where power allocation exists between a central authority and other lower ranking political units. In the US, the state and federal government have separate roles. Article VI indicates that the national government has power over the state governments (Lacroix, 2010). The national and state governments exercise direct power over individuals, and the two also share some roles such as tax collection. Federalism draws its power from the constitution.
There are a number of areas of power that affirm the constitutionality of federalism. They include delegated, reserved, concurrent, implied, inherent and prohibited powers of the national and state governments. The expressed, implied and inherent powers belong to the national government. The expressed powers are specifically accorded to the national government as outlined in Article I-V, while inherent powers are those conferred to the national government solely based on its sovereign nature. Implied powers of the national government are not enumerated in the constitution but can be justifiably inferred in Article I section eight. Concurrent power is divided between the two levels of government. The reserved powers belong to the state government because they are neither delegated to the national government, nor denied to the states as per Article IV. Prohibited powers are denied to both levels of government as outlined in Article I sections nine and ten of the constitution (Lacroix, 2010).
The national government has exclusive power to legislate, carry out foreign affairs, coin and print money, create regulations on foreign relations and interstate trade, declare war, regulate immigration and naturalization, and govern its territories and acquired ones and establish federal courts. State governments on the flipside reserve the power to regulate intrastate trade, create local governments, plan and oversee elections, administer public schooling, establish licensing standards for certain ...