grants. They disagreed with too much national interference. Nixon sought to revise the grant system with revenue sharing. He believed that political liberties are best assured by limiting the size and scope of the national government. The states were given money, and could decide where funds were needed with no strings attached. The block grants and revenue sharing reduced federal requirements, therefore giving states greater freedom while setting the stage for withdrawal of federal funding. Ever since the peak of federal activism in the 1960s, there have been repeated efforts to stop the effect of leveling the playing field that the massive flow of funds from the national government to the states creates. The attempts to cutback on federal grants have not marked a period of returning state power, however. The two levels are molded together like a fruitcake, making this kind of separation impossible. Fruitcake federalism is where the two levels of government are entirely intertwined and dependant on each other. This is also called new federalism, or new-age federalism. The national government looks towards the states to implement its policies, or to test out its new policies like laboratories of democracy and the states need the support to do so. States have lost the strength the Tenth amendment originally provided. Instead, they barter with the federal government for money. In this way there is very little that the national government cannot influence. National laws can reach traditionally local matters as crime, education, and even marriage and divorce. In its 1995 decision in United States vs. Lopez however, the Court unexpectedly held that the national government had exceeded its constitutional authority by enacting a law prohibiting the possession of handguns near public school buildings. The Court held that the federal government had not shown any connection between the possession of guns near school buildings and Congress' power...
