A strong central government supports for a sound and strong economy.  Of course, with any one person or one group of people in control, there is always to power-hungry and greedy individuals.  No one is perfect, and all humanity is susceptible to the lure of power and money.  The last thing the Founding Fathers wanted was another King.

As the previous posts identify, examining the works of James Madison and John Jay might be a good start.  The fundamental fear caused by Shays' Rebellion and the lack of control the government had under the Articles of Confederation helped to bring to light that while central government had much within which to be scared, it had to be present in order to prevent anarchy and chaos from ensuing.  I think that these issues were fundamental and quite evident in the writings of these two framers.  Check out "The Federalist Papers" as previously noted.  This would give much insight into the Federalist position that advocated a strong central government in the new nation.

The best primary source arguing for a strong central government is  The Federalist, A Collection of Essays written by James Madison, John Jay, and Alexander Hamilton under the pen name Publius. Known today as The Federalist Papers,  the essays were written in the defense of the ratification of the Constitution, thus a stronger central government. Although the essays take on different aspects of the proposed new government, all of them reflect the support for a centralized authority...out of necessity due to the failures of The Articles of Confederation.

The Library of Congress has internet access to The Federalist Papers, as well as the Anti-Federalists Responses. I think you should begin with The Federalist Numbers 10, 51, and 78  to address your topic however, read through several of the others...for it will only make your paper stronger.

Well, I'd look in that text again, because if they said anything about George Washington, Ben Franklin, Alexander Hamilton or John Adams, they were all avid supporters of a strong central government.

They had good reasons.  The country was broke and $4 million in debt with no way to tax so they could become economically stable.  There was no standing military either to protect our shipping from seizure or the frontier against Native attacks.  Nor could our country even effectively deal with a mob of ticked off farmers in Shay's Rebellion.  With a 13/13 requirement to amend the Articles of Confederation, they also argued that it had to be scrapped, there was no way to fix it using that requirement, as the 13 states would never agree on one proposal.

Were the Founding Fathers right to be skeptical of government officials having too much power? Provide arguments for and against a strong central government.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.  Yes, the power of government needs limitations, both in practice and in society.  There is a social contract John Locke spoke of, an agreement between the people and the government to allow them to have the power as long as the public trust is not violated.  When the contract is broken, people remove their governments, whether through elections or revolution.  There should always be a healthy skepticism of government power.  There should always be a healthy debate, and a justification for, increasing that power in any meaningful way.  Democracy depends on it.

The current situation of education accountability K-12 is a classic instance where federal oversight and participation is spurring reform and better behavior by the states. Public education of minor children in the United States has been, since its inception, the provenance of the states, with strong participation by local boards of education.

The USDOE's Race to the Top requires that states who win the funding demonstrate willingness to embrace school choice, buy-in by the teachers' union, and commitment to closing the achievement gap. Without the federal money being dangled in front of them, state boards of education would be much slower to institute meaningful, lasting reform.

One word:  czars.  The Founding Fathers were brilliant people who believed in God and designed not only our government but also our nation's capital on those beliefs and principles.  The checks and balances system they put in place were meant to keep any one branch of government from having too much power...they never would have accepted the idea of appointed czars who, like the IRS, answer to no one and have absolute power to do whatever they deem necessary.  Scary!

In response to #2, the other side of this debate is that powerful central governments worse than powerful state governments in some ways, because central governments make laws without the necessary knowledge of states and how those laws would apply in each state, each with its own very different context and situation. This could lead to massive problems.

Having just come out from under the tyrannical rule of King George III, the leaders of the newly formed United States of America were very skeptical of giving too much power to any one man or group of men!  They were completely justified in their skepticism and took great pains to set up a government that would be just, wise and efficacious.  They took great pains to design a system of government with checks and balances in an effort to prevent tyrannical control, a system so thorough, yet so simple!  They wrote it all down in one of the greatest documents ever written--The Constitution! 

Say what you want, but I feel the founding fathers were completely justified in their skepticism of giving government officials too much power!

The other side of the argument, the idea that the central government can become too powerful and seek after things that are not in the best interests of the people.  In this case, that same seperation from the people likely to make "dumb" decisions can be very useful.  Patrick Henry was one of the folks who was very nervous about strengthening central government, afraid that it would only encourage the pursuit of empire and other grand things that would only be built upon the backs of the common man, not benefitting them in any way.

If you consider just a few things that the central government can do without any popular vote, perhaps you could argue that he was correct to be afraid.  The fact that Obama, who campaigned against the "drill, baby, drill" idea immediately started signing exemptions and leases for oil drilling upon entering office.

You could also look at the wars which have been fought without congressional approval and are sold as being "in the nation's best interest" but that is a debatable concept at best.

The main support for the idea of a strong central government came from the Federalists.  They thought that we needed to be more afraid of the people than of government officials.

If I were writing this, I would not exactly try to argue that we don't need to be skeptical of a powerful central government, but that we need to worry even more about powerful state governments.  The idea behind this was that states were too close to the people and the people could make really dumb decisions.

Some examples of this are things that happened in the US under the Articles of Confederation.  In some states, farmers had heavy debts and so they pushed their governments to do things like "stay laws" that forgave the debts or "legal tender laws" that let them pay in (less valuable) paper money.  This hurt the economy and it hurt the people who had lent the money.

So the idea is that a central government would be more distant from the people and less likely to indulge them by doing dumb things.