Taking and Giving Away Power in a Federalist System

This week's podcast A City Throws in the Towel and documentary Cheney's Law tell us two different tales about power in a federalist system with a separation of powers. On one hand, we have a story about the Bush Administration successfully attempting to consolidate power in the national executive branch. In the other we have the city of Reading, Pennsylvania ceding its power to the state in order to avoid financial ruin. In both of these instances we can see how a policy decision like re-defining torture and selling off government property can have a larger meaning in terms of the distribution of power between branches and levels of government. We can also think beyond the effects on the executive branch (in Cheney's Law) and the city government of Reading (in A City Throws in the Towel) and hypothesize about the long-term consequences of these decisions for other branches and levels of government. Giving up power is a very difficult thing to do, and once power is consolidated or distributed it tends to stay that way until another emergency or shock to the system emerges.

In terms of the executive branch, it remains relatively powerful since Bush and Cheney have left office. The Obama administration continues the practice of issuing signing statements to laws, but I think the debt ceiling negotiations revealed that Obama is more hesitant about exercising executive power. Here's a NYTimes article about executive power under Obama.

In A City Throws in the Towel we heard about Reading, PA as an example of a city that was taken over by the state as a financial disaster area. The podcast hints at the fact that many cities throughout the nation are facing the same issues, as population decreases and poor economic conditions decimate their tax bases. In Reading's case they chose a state takeover, but this is not always the case. The city of Detroit, Michigan is currently at risk of being involuntarily taken over by the state if they cannot cut $200 million in spending.  Local governments are not protected by the Constitution, unlike state governments, so this may be a coming threat for many cities and counties. State governments are feeling similar financial crunches, particularly because so many have balanced budget provisions in their constitutions or state laws. The question remains, what will happen to our federal system if states can no longer meet their financial obligations to residents?