Very true.
Let me explain a little more. The feds give states about 10% of their funding for education. Along with that money comes a list of rules and regulations states must comply with. If they want the money, they must follow these regulations. If they don’t want to follow the rules then they can renounce the 10% and do whatever they want with their schools. That is not a mandate. The feds aren’t forcing them to do anything.
And what if the regulations require them, in practice, to spend more than the feds are giving them? Would you not call that an “unfunded mandate”? If not, what would qualify?
If the federal regulations required them to spend more money than they are receiving from the feds, states would be stupid to continue taking the federal money. There is still no mandate under this scenario. The states would most likely simply opt out. If they did not, then they are to blame for the idiotic public policy choice they made.
And to a degree this is precisely what Madison intended if you read the Federalist papers. He expected the federal government would want to get more powerful. He expected each individual branch would seek out more power as well. But he felt that since ALL divisions of government (including state government) would be trying to expand their power, they would effectively check one another. In fact our system relies on the other divisions of government actively trying to protect their interests to work.
If the President of the United States back in the early 19th century routinely just ignored or ran over the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court did nothing, and the Congress did nothing, then effectively checks and balances would have been broken. Checks and balances relies on each individual division of government actually utilizing their checking and balancing powers.
The big card that state governments were supposed to have is twofold. One, is they were supposed to have representatives not representing the people, but the State in congress. Two, it was genuinely assumed the vast majority of governmental powers not given to congress were to be left to the states. The federal government was there to impose uniformity in areas where it was important, like national commerce, national defense, and et cetera. However via probably the most astounding readings of the interstate commerce clause anyone could ever imagine, the Federal government now has broad extortionary power and de facto power over virtually whatever it chooses and however it chooses.
Not necessarily. The federal money is still there, a state might feel cheated to be left out of it while other states are getting it (and while that state’s own citizens are, after all, still contributing to the fund with their federal taxes), and the extra money they’re required to spend might well be worth it in terms of meeting public-policy goals – especially in education. But at the same time, we might well expect the state governments to feel some resentment under that scenario.
What, in your view, would be a genuine “unfunded mandate” from the feds?
Also, the worst current unfunded mandates are:
-Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
-No Child Left Behind
-State Drug Costs for Dual-Eligibles
-Help America Vote Act (over 2.4 billion in federal funds supposed to be given as the feds contribution has never arrived, maybe it was lost in transit)
-State Criminal and Alien Assistance Program
-Food Stamps
I actually don’t have a problem with most of these programs (aside from NCLB) however the problem is there are specifically budgetted “shortfalls” within all of these that the states are more or less required to make up or they get zero money.
I may have a problem with HAVA in addition to NCLB since I think it’s a law that’s basically done nothing to help America vote and thus is a waste of government money.
The UMRA doesn’t view any of these as unfunded mandates. Like someone has already said, technically NCLB isn’t an “unfunded mandate.” However, when the Federal government says, “Here’s your school funding, but you only get it if you do XXX things, all of which cost multiple millions of dollars to your state.” The states are left in a rough position, if they don’t have the money to implement these programs, they don’t get their federal dollars and that would be a crisis situation. So in effect the states are forced to spend money complying with a program.
It’s the difference between someone holding you down and raping you and someone putting a gun to your head and telling you if you resist they’ll shoot you.
It’s rape either way.
All of the current “virtual unfunded mandates” basically are of the gun-wielding variety. The states are all but forced to take certain actions, actions which have high costs associated with them, in order to get their federal money. The problem being states often don’t have this money, and the federal government doesn’t seem to realize states aren’t allowed to run multi-billion dollar deficits. Although many state governments have been forced to operate at deficit spending lest they suffer even worse by not getting their federal dollars.
Also, it’s not like there’s “Federal money” and “State money.” It’s technically the people’s money, and theoretically speaking money that congress specifically appropriates to the states which it generates via taxation of state citizens morally shouldn’t be withholdable as an extortionary measure.
When the government actually imposes a mandate and does not pay for it. The two words have pretty clear definitions, no matter how the education lobby tries to distort them. A mandate is simply the feds telling states to do something. Unfunded means the feds don’t supply the money to carry out that mandate.
A mandate is not part of a package of federal money that a state can receive if it complies with certain regulations. Those regulations are conditions on receiving money, not a mandate.
Im not arguing the textual/technical definition, but rather the effective reality of the matter. No, NCLB isn’t an unfunded mandate as defined by the Unfunded Mandate Reform Act. But if it looks like a chicken, sounds like a chicken, and acts like a chicken, it’s probably a chicken. Legal technicalities aside no one honestly thinks state governments have the realistic ability to castrate themselves by denying themselves federal funds.
The current choice they get with these “virtual” unfunded mandates is deficit spending if they assent or massive deficit spending if they dissent.
That’s not really a choice at all.
This could stand a bit more refinement, I think.
The conservative/liberal divide isn’t so much about big or small government, but about the arena in which big government is applied.
The conservative side:
-Small government in economic affairs.
-Intrusive government in personal affairs—meaning a hubristic attempt to legislate morality, taste, and decency in our culture.
The liberal side:
-Small government in personal affairs. (Although this is quickly changing.)
-Intrusive government in economic affairs—welfare statism, social security, etc.
It should be pointed out that
-These are modern iterations of the terms “liberal” and “conservative.”
-Both of these stances are hypocritical (IMO).
-The leades of both “sides” regularly betray these ideals. Politicians are generally sophists and opportunists, we as a people would do best to not allow ourselves to be leashed by demegogues. To quote (conservative writer) P.J. O’Rourke: “Republicans spend their entire time out of office screaming that big government doesn’t work. Then, they get elected, and they prove it.”
Also, your OP was pretty much perfect.
No unfunded mandate there. The states aren’t forced to do any of these things. States choose to participate in these federal programs and thus must comply with federal regulations.
Why would it be a crisis situation? States don’t have to offer any of these programs. They choose to do so.
Horrible analogy. It’s not rape, it’s prostitution. The government isn’t punishing any states if they don’t comply. The government is offering money to states if they comply. There is a huge difference.
No one is forcing states to take the money. The states choose to take the money. The feds simply put conditions on the taking of that money.
Cite. Please show me an example of a state resorting to deficit spending to receive federal money.
Actually, there is. What the states collect in taxes is state money to serve state purposes. What the feds collect is federal money to serve federal purposes.
How about Congress just lowers taxes and lets states take care of these programs, which are in truth state matters?
Short answer: Because it’s politically impossible. Reagan’s “New Federalism” rhetoric won’t fly any more. In the present climate, the president, and Congress, have to be seen to be doing something about education. Besides, leaving it entirely up to the states disadvantages children who grow up in states with tighter budgets than others.
You’re talking more about liberal/conservative positions on the economic scale and the social scale versus their positions on federalism, they’re mostly separate issues.
Hence my repeated statement of that very fact and the use of the term “virtual unfunded mandate.”
Actually the federal government mandates states provide certain services. The state of Virginia can’t choose not to educate its children nor can it choose to discontinue the issuing of food stamps.
If it’s prostitution it’s forcible prostitution, which is akin to rape. “I’ll pay you if you put out for my johns, but if you don’t, you’ll end up in the gutter with a hole in your head.”
That’s like a church giving food to a starving man, but telling him if he doesn’t accept Jesus he doesn’t get any food.
Well, like I said many state governments are legally bound in such a manner that they cannot enter deficit spending. A good example of what these mandates do to state government can be exemplified in the article “The Mandate Monster” by MOlly Stauffer and Carl Tubbesing, published in May 2004’s issue of “State Legislatures”.
In which it is stated:
"One way to understand the effect of these cost shift, according to Gary Olson, director of the Senate Fiscal Agency in Michigan, is to compare them to state budget gaps for FY 04.
In November 2003, the Michigan fiscal staff projected a $505 million gap in the state’s FY 04 budget. NCSL’s mandates study estimates that Michigan has absorbed at least $812 million in unfunded mandates and other cost shifts this fiscal year.
Olson is quick to point out that there are many explanations for Michigan’s severe budget woes. “Yet,” he says, “these federal cost shifts have clearly compounded our broader fiscal problems. Not have this $812 million unfunded liability clearly would have given the Legislature some desperately needed breathing room.”…
…“These mandates have a corrosive effect on our federal system” says Utah Speaker Martin Stephens, NCSL president. “Federal policy priorities supplant state priorities. Legislatures’ spending options are handcuffed by federal decisions.” Frequently, he says, a legislature’s only choice is to cut funding for local governments. And they may be facing even tougher decisions about services and taxes."
“In other words, officials furthest removed from the voters are making budget decisions for state legislators and city councilmen,” Stephens says. “But that’s not easy to explain when all the voter wants to know is why the library had to cut its hours.”
[The above are two very small excerpts from a much larger magazine article, if it was inappropriate to transcribe that much I apologize]
As for your cite, here is Michigan’s budget for FY 04 cite
Of particular interest is what Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm had to say. The situation in Michigan is bleak, the state has had to spend $800m more than it takes in for the past three years. And that due to the budget strain many services are being reduced or cut in the state of Michigan.
I wonder if the Federal government just GAVE Michigan its federal dollars, instead of mandating they spend $800 million in order to receive them, would have helped things at all.
Government has the right to collect taxes in order to spend said money for the people’s good, it would be a violation of the social compact for government to collect money simply to hold it and refuse to pay it out in the forms of government services.
Well, Congress would have to want to decrease its importance, and there was a time when Republicans and Reaganites actually did just that, but that’s part of a bygone era.
Furthermore Congress would have to shelve current attempts that seek to make it extremely difficult for states to tax corporations effectively.
I was trying more to compare economic versus social positions, and the position of federalism or anti-federalism in each arena. I think we are confusing each other’s use of terminology a bit?