The Federalist Papers (1787-1789): Federalist Essay No.30 - No.36

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Critics state that local governments have as great a need to provide for exigencies as the national government. By relying on the national government to meet those needs, the national government could take advantage of their power by establishing such laws that make state taxation laws illegal--thereby destroying the states by depriving them of their sustenance.

This could not happen, because the strength is always on the side of the people, and they are most closely aligned with the state governments. It is less likely that the national government will encroach upon the states as the other way around. We must have faith in the people that they will always serve to balance the power between the state and national government.

Furthermore, the state governments will never have a bigger burden of expenses than the national government, because history and experience shows that the biggest financial burden is the expense of wars. Since state governments do not have the burden of paying for common defense, their need to tax will be limited to paying the salaries of their civil servants.

The advantage of concurrent powers is that both the state and the national government have an unlimited authority to collect revenue, without either being subordinated to the other. It would be a good idea for the two organizations to develop an understanding of what items are state taxable and what are federal taxable. This will be mutually beneficial and will eliminate the possibility of redundancy.

Critics claim that the federal government cannot levy effective internal taxes due to being unfamiliar with local circumstances. They overlook that a well- educated group of representatives from many localities have the same advantage enacting taxes as if they were legislating for their own locality.

Although direct taxes vary the most from state to state, the federal government will legislate only the process by which the taxes are to be assessed, while the local people will choose the assessors of the land. Furthermore the national census will eliminate any fear of bias in counting population.

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