ABSTRACT
Today, municipal bonds are a critical source of capacity building in the United States. The bond market exceeds $4 trillion and is comparable to one fourth of the national debt or the current-dollar market value of the nation's projected output of goods and services in2012. In the United States' decentralized political system, the municipal bond has been an important asset in the growth of the national economy. Liberal theory lays out three potential avenues for cities to play a role in world politics either by importing to them the domestic capacity of the state or as relatively autonomous players in the world economy. The urban role in the national economy emerged in two distinct stages. The most significant difference between these two stages is the federal government's efforts, beginning in the late 1960s, to limit the use of intergovernmental tax immunity. The financial management organization, the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA), held that the legislation violated the Sixteenth Amendment.
