The article makes an interesting point.
Apparently the way the Federal government gets around many of the limitations on it's power is by not requiring obedience, but "rewarding" certain behavior with money, money taken from taxes in the states in the first place.
For example - 55 MPH speed limit - there is no federal speed limit and constitution justification for such a thing.
But if states want their share of highway money they had to lower their speed limits.
It's a real problem.
The Union's victory in Civil War ended the proposition that states that created the federal union could leave it (or short of that, nullify unconstitutional encroachments on their sovereignty by the federal government as Madison and Jefferson argued in the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions) destroyed the most important structural restraint on the ability of the federal government to exceed its legal powers
Once that check (the vertical check and balance of the sovereignty of the states was far more important in the Founders minds than the horizontal checks and balances between the 3 branches of the federal government) was destroyed...the ultimate fate of the US was written...ultimately, what is to stop the federal government from abusing its powers? Most Americans today are so ignorant of the Constitution, they are unaware that there are any limitations on the power of the federal government
It's the same thing with "tax credits"...it's a euphemism for "a fine if you don't do what the government wants..."
Most Americans, even pubbies, seem to be too stupid to understand what is going on.