2003 Federalism FRQ-Model Student Response

The federal and state governments in American rely on more than just the governor or the president to perform their executive duties. Millions of employees work in America to perform the duties of government has to fulfill. From the public school teacher to the state psychiatrist from the prison guard to the FBI agent men and women are placed under the government budget.

Since 1945, two trends have appeared. The first is that the number of state and local employees has increased steadily at a rate of approximately half a million a year. The second is that the number of federal government employees has not increased, but instead remained rather constant. If anything, the number of federal employees has decreased. Though it is true under the Clinton administration the trend in state and local employee numbers was reversed, the state and local employees are still much more numerous now than they were 55 years ago. Since 1945, state and local and federal employees were approximately equal in number. What this trend means is that state and local employees now outnumber federal employees at a rate approximately equal to three to one.

This intense increase in state and local employees has occurred because the federal government in this period began imposing more federal mandates. These are things that the federal government requires the state or local governments to do without giving them funds with which to do it. This meant more state and local employees had to be hired to perform the service necessary to fulfill the mandate. Block grants also increased during this period. These are grants given to the state governments by the federal government with few strings attached. With this money the state could also hire more employees.

The trends in the employment in our government exist not because our federal government is not doing anything, but instead because it is delegating responsibilities to the lower governments. The government now has more things it does than ever before and it is because of this one sees such as rise in state employees.