Thus, an advisory board should be put into place to assist state and local governments in dealing with unfunded federal mandates as a further bridge in the communication gap between these two sources of government. VI. Conclusion: Intergovernmental Policy Issue Implications

Unfunded federal mandates have incredible consequences for intergovernmental relations. Most importantly, unfunded mandates hit at the issue of federalism. The current federal government was founded as a reaction to the Articles of Confederation, in which the United States were not united enough to have real power. But the opposite can also be true, and in fact some political party platforms today are founded on the principal that states do not have the rights and autonomy that is needed in order to run a successful federalist system. Unfunded mandates make clear the lack of communication between federal governments and lower state and local governments. In fact, unfunded federal mandates suggest that an almost tyrannical relationship exists between the federal government and the state and local governments that cannot oppose the mandates that are placed upon them. Thus, addressing the issue of unfunded federal mandates addresses the issue of inequality in intergovernmental relations, achieving again a country built of many United States, a country that is held together by a federal branch of government, but that allows states the autonomy to do what is best for the people they know most. The fact that unfunded federal mandates have continued to rise despite efforts to curb them suggests that the issue of intergovernmental relations...

To do this, legislation must be adopted that forces communication to occur.
References

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"History and evaluation of the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act." (2004, September 1). Retrieved June 8, 2009, from the Goliath Database. Web Site:

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