 POLITICS IS CONFLICTUAL
Spend some time exploring Bankrate.com and the Tax Foundation’s interactive state tax map. Compare your home state’s sales and income tax rates with those of neighboring and distant states.
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| 1. How similar are tax rates across the fifty states? Provide specific examples. Choose two states and explain why they may have set their taxes as they did. What kind of federalism does this illustrate? Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of allowing such variability? |
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 PROCESS MATTERS
Read the section of the report by researchers from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities titled,“Discretionary and Mandatory Grants.”The information is summarized in bullet points and in Table 1 of the report. |
| 2. What does President Obama’s proposed budget get suggest regarding the relationship between the national and local governments? Why might the president want to move toward one kind of grant and away from another? Who, if anyone, is likely to oppose such a move and why? |
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 POLITICS IS EVERYWHERE
Federalism provides citizens with a broad range of policies to choose from. Supposedly, people can “vote with their feet” by moving to a low-tax, low-service state or a high-tax, high-service state. |
| 3. Is this always the case? What barriers might people face in attempting to vote with their feet? Generate specific examples for your answers to these questions using CNN Money’s cost of living calculator |
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