How Do Categorical Grants Limit The Power Of The Federal Government

The framers of the United States Constitution created a federal system. Federalism is the division of power between the national government and the state governments. Each are given specific powers designated for only the. There are also concurrent powers which both the national government and the state governments share. Federalism is a way to limit the power of the nation government because instead of having all of the power vested in the national government, some of that power is given to the states.

Categorical grants have been used to increase the power of the national government relative to the states. Categorical grants are grants-in-aid that states receive from federal governments with specific orders on where to spend the money. This increases the power of the national government because it gives them the power to control what the states do with the money. It also gives the national government the ability to order the states to do something that will benefit the federal government. For example, the federal government could say that they would give a state a categorial grant-in-aid to fund a specific educational programs in a school as long as the school makes their students take a standardized test every year.

The “necessary and proper” clause or the elastic clause also increases the power of the national government because it

A block grant is a grant-in-aid granted to the states by the federal government and grants them the ability to spend the money in whichever broad program they wish to fund. An example of this could be the state choosing to use the block grant to fund education or health within the state. This increases the state’s power over the national government because the national government has no say or control over where the state decides to spend the money, as opposed to categorical grants where the national government can