How Government Actually Works
Federal, state, county, city without the civics-class theatrics
Government isn’t one big pyramid. It’s a stack of jurisdictions, each controlling different levers. Most real problems—rent, transit, school quality, emergency response—sit at the collision points where these layers overlap or contradict each other.
Federal
The federal government sets national floors and funds the expensive systems no state can shoulder alone. It controls immigration policy, civil rights protections, environmental standards, transportation grants, student loans, safety-net programs, disaster relief, and the rules that govern healthcare markets. It collects revenue on a scale nobody else can and redistributes it downward. States, counties, and cities depend on these dollars to run programs the public assumes are “local.”
State
States run the systems people interact with most, even if the statehouse feels far away. They control school funding formulas, labor laws, wage standards, criminal sentencing, environmental permitting, healthcare eligibility, child welfare, utility regulation, and major transportation planning. When a state legislature changes a rule, it can instantly reshape what cities and counties are allowed to do—or block them entirely. A state can override a city’s housing policy or dictate how a county must run elections.
Most frustrations that get directed at local officials—slow benefits processing, lack of affordable housing, clogged freeways—are governed by state rules, not city hall.
County
Counties manage the systems that keep everything else upright but rarely get public attention. Public health departments handle disease control, restaurant inspections, and healthcare for low-income residents. Counties run jails, probation, elections, emergency medical services, foster care, and property tax assessments.
When a hospital ER is overwhelmed, it’s often tied to county-level capacity. When elections feel slow, it’s because counties handle the staffing, equipment, and procedures. Counties often have the largest social-service budgets in the region, but the least public visibility.
City
Cities run the daily infrastructure people physically bump into. Zoning and permitting shape rent and business openings. Policing policies set the tone of neighborhood safety. Transportation departments decide where buses run, how fast repairs happen, and whether streets are safe to cross. Parks, libraries, sanitation, building inspections, and code enforcement all sit here.
A broken streetlight, a delayed bus, an endless permit line—those aren’t abstract failures. They’re the output of city rules, staffing levels, and budgets. But many of those constraints were set upstream by state law or federal funding formulas.
The Real Takeaway
No single level of government can fix complex problems alone. Cities can’t fix housing affordability when state zoning laws restrict density. Counties can’t fix ER wait times without federal healthcare dollars. States can’t modernize transportation without federal grants.
The system isn’t broken because people don’t care; it’s strained because accountability is scattered across four jurisdictions that depend on each other but don’t move at the same speed.