State and Local Relations

Questions: Why is there tension between the state and local levels of government? In what ways is this tension healthy for our political system overall?

There is tension between the state and local levels of government because local levels of government want more power and flexibility allocated to it in order to carry out the necessary policies to help those particular communities efficiently. Another contributing factor to the tension between the state and local governments is fiscal stress or in other words, financial stress. Local governments want a lot of monies allocated to them so that they can have higher budgets and wiggle room when it comes to allocating funds for schools, buildings, and public services. Localities are also stressed when states require a certain amount of money and in some cases, taxes, to be funneled back into the state as a whole. This takes away from the local governments abilities to carry out whatever functions they had planned. States may also become frustrated when local governments are given a lot of power to proceed how they would like because services and funds may not be fair all across the board.

This tension is somewhat healthy for our political system overall because it allows our country to test different ways of governing. When certain ways of governing have been proven successful for some local governments, they may prove successful for the state government as a whole which may in turn allow the state government to become a leader for the country. Our political system overall tends to toy with different modes of governing and this allows for both the minorities to be heard along with the majorities. Different modes of governing may also reach different types of communities such as the suburbs.