Chapter 3
Learning Target 3.4
Explain how cooperative federalism led to the growth of the national government

The era of dual federalism met its end when the Great Depression hit the United States during the 1930's. There were a series of economic events that led to this tragic time, some examples are:

• bank failures
• severe slumps in agricultural prices
• decline in the construction industry
• stock prices were rising, until October 29, 1929, when they crashed

In 1933, the newly elected president FDR, proposed the New Deal. This was a program of "Relief, Recovery, Reform," began in 1933, to bring the US out of the Great Depression. A series of acts passed during the first few weeks of Roosevelt's presidency such as Federal Housing Administration (provided federal financing for new home construction), Civilian Conservation Corps (work relief program for farers and homeowners), Agricultural Adjustment Administration (imposed restrictions on production in agriculture and many industries while also providing subsidies to farmers).

Overall, the New Deal forced all levels of government to work cooperatively together and enlarged scope of the national government. This led to the idea of a "marble cake" instead of a "layer cake". Cooperative federalism is basically that the national and state governments work together as a whole. Having established this new federalism, this increased federal funding for rebuilding the nation. In order for the national government to still protect its citizens it created categorical grants, which are grants that allocated federal funds to states for a specific purpose such as health, welfare, and safety. The Great Society program was a broad attempt to combat poverty and discrimination, and also an example of the use of federal funds.