Discussion Task: Drinking Age
As stated in the reading "Competitive Federalism," "In 1984, the federal government passed the National Minimum Drinking Age Act (NMDAA), a crosscutting mandate that gradually reduced federal highway grant money to any state that failed to increase the legal age for alcohol purchase and possession to twenty-one. After losing a legal battle against the NMDAA, all states were in compliance by 1988." Do you think that the federal government should have the power to cut or eliminate funding if states don't adopt laws that the federal government wants them to adopt? Why or why not?