Federalism the United States Was

Federalism The United States was founded under the concept of Federalism which is a system in which power and governance is shared among sovereign states and the national government that is in charge of those states. Federalism is obviously at least somewhat effective because it has been used for centuries but it is certainly not without it's faults (Poynton, 2011). Most issues associated with federalism stem from conflict caused by the friction between individual state governance and the national governance over all states (Poynton, 2011).

The legality of gay marriage is a current example of federalism's downfalls. Even if a gay couple is married in one state, their marriage may not carry over to another state because that state may not recognize the marriage. Since there is no national policy or law regarding gay marriage, the issue is left up to each individual state and therefore causes consternation. In addition to this, federalism also causes confusion over where allegiance lies regarding policy at times which can be detrimental to a country (Poynton, 2011).

The National Guard is a victim of the tug-o-war game that is federalism. The National Guard is composed of state militia members and is federally acknowledged as an inactive armed force for the U.S. (Murphy, 2008). Due to the Militia Act of 1792, the National Guard can be called upon by the federal government and guidelines are in place for militia members (Murphy, 2008. Originally, the National Guard started out as state militias whose sole purpose was to defend and protect their state (Poynton, 2010).

Now, members of the National Guard serve overseas in wars among other things. Therefore, federalism destroyed the first intended purpose of the militias that comprised the National Guard as now state's are left without complete control of their individual protection (Murphy, 2008). There are several things to be considered when emergency response policies are developed on a local level. For one, the jurisdiction should be sure to continually identify possible hazards, the odds of them occurring, and how vulnerable the jurisdiction is (Turoff, 2004).

It is also essential for the emergency management program to be tested periodically to determine their capability of dealing with hazards. In order to warn other areas that are at risk and to obtain useful information for the future, damage assessment should take place as well (Turoff, 2004). Specifically, the jurisdiction should develop technology adequate enough for them to "collect, compile, report, receive, and transmit damage assessment information" (Turoff, 2004).

The best thing local policy makers can do when designing emergency responses policies, is implement guidelines where analyzing, researching, and providing information about hazards is priority as they are necessary for prevention. Federal policy makers require a similar frame of mind to their local counterparts except they have an extremely large amount of people to be concerned with. Hurricane Katrina is seen as one of FEMA's shortfalls and this is largely do to disaster planning falling by the wayside before hand (Birkland, 2008).

Thus, the first and foremost thing federal emergency policy makers should consider, is how much time and thought they are.