A lot of liberals on the forum have a laundry list of problems with Bush. However, one problem I think all conservatives should have with the Bush administration is Bush’s blatant betrayal of “New Federalism.” Bush was supposed to be a strong supporter of strengthened state power and opposed to both unfunded mandates and reckless federal spending.
When Reagan came to office quite a lot of his support was based on his promise of giving more power to state and local governments, as well as offering state and local governments the opportunity to deal with problems that had, after the Great Society days, been largely dealt with by the federal government.
Reagan was a man of both action and words.
In 1965 federal aid as a percent of GDP was 1.6%, in 1980 when Reagan was elected it was 3.4%. By the end of the Reagan era, after adjustment for inflation Reagan had successfully reduced federal spending for intergovernmental aid by almost one fifth. As a share of the economy, grants fell by a third (for cites I can only refer you to the August 2004 issue of Governing, the “Radical Federalist” article by Donald F. Kettl.)
The idea that state governments should have more power and control over spending became a popular one for several reasons. A big one that is very important is the fact that most state governments are legally bound to balance their budgets. It doesn’t always work, but legally they are supposed to do so. We all know that the federal government has no such limitation on its budgeting.
There is also the idea that state and local government are better at implementing services in a manner that best suits their region as opposed to the federal government which often gives out aid and programs in an extortionary manner and in a manner that is inflexible and unresponsive to variations between different localities.
One of the more heinous federal acts is that of the unfunded mandate. Which is what you have when the federal government mandates the states implement certain programs, but THEN inform the states they have to come up with the funding themselves. How this passes the 10th amendment or constitutional muster is hard to say, the supreme court has long ignored the concept of state sovereignty. And for many years the concept of state sovereignty was sullied due to its association with both the defense of slavery and rampant civil rights violations.
The unfunded mandate was so unpopular that even Democrats got on board to do something about them, and under Bill Clinton legislation was passed to severely limit the ability of the federal government to issue unfunded mandates.
With the election of President Bush in 2000, a strong proponent of state sovereignty and a former governor I think many conservatives like myself were looking forward to a true return of federalism in this country.
Unfortunately what we got was the introduction of a new, heinous type of “Bush federalism” or “ad hoc” federalism that spells financial ruin for the individual states. Under Bush the unfunded mandate has exploded. After the passage of the Unfunded Mandate Reform Act only 3 bills have been passed which are considered “unfunded mandates” under the definition of the act.
How then has Bush effectively multiplied the true number of unfunded mandates? Various loopholes in the UMRA that allow Bush to implement these unfunded mandates that “technically” don’t match the definition.
Unfunded mandates are bad enough when it comes to the fiscal solvency of a state. A state shouldn’t be subjected to mandated spending because such mandates ignore the fact that state governments have their own revenue/expense and need to be able to actually balance the two. An unfunded mandate makes that extremely possible and forces states to cut money from other programs to meeth the federal requirements.
Bush has seen fit to make it more difficult still for the state finances. There’s a certain bill working its way through Congress that hasn’t gotten much press. It’s the Business Activity Tax Simplification Act. It isn’t enough that Bush has mandated increased spending within state government, if BATS passes (and it probably will) it will severely limit the ability of sovereign state governments to tax corporations. Because apparently, the taxation of corporation by the states is some infringement on interstate commerce.
BATS is just the latest in the long list of actions taken to castrate the ability of states to generate revenue. Effectively via the imposition of unfunded mandates and the forced reduction in tax revenues, Bush and congressional republicans are apparently persuing some agenda that almost guarantees virtually every state government will have to operate massive deficits just to keep running.
What’s most heinous is how Bush continues to actually present himself as a federalist simply because he believes marriage should be defined on a state level. One position, one of the least important in regards to state government, he supports the federalist stance. And even that is just in theory, he supports the idea of states defining marriage as long as the definition suits him, when it doesn’t he starts to talk about the need for a national defense of marriage act or amendment. In virtually everything else he’s the most anti-federalist President we’ve had since LBJ. Unfunded mandates, restriction on state revenue generation, and interference in areas that have traditionally been state affairs; for example education and voting (both via acts that do nothing to improve either and just help to bankrupt state government.)