Altivo

Legally, the difference is that those types of things are the jurisdiction of state and municipal governments, not the federal government. This gives you a choice - if one state has too many "penalty taxes" then you can always choose to live in another state. That way, states are encouraged to prevent these penalties from getting out of hand, or they risk an exodus. But if you have the federal government doing that, then it becomes a much bigger problem, and there's no such incentive for them to control the number or amount of such penalties... and that's why it is supposed to be unconstitutional for the federal government to do that.