For almost 200 years, the federal-state relationship has shifted more and more toward national supremacy. But some observers today believe that over the past twenty years, the balance of power is beginning to tilt back toward the states. Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George Bush tried to slow down the growth of the national government under the banner of "New Federalism."
Richard Nixon declared an open attempt to reverse the flow of power to the federal government back to the states. In his winning campaign of 1980, Ronald Reagan claimed that the federal government, in its attempts to improve society, was actually eroding individual freedoms. Then in 1994, when Republicans took control of both houses of Congress, the leaders of the
"devolution revolution"