More on federal dependency and the erosion of self-government
Federal money once gave state budgets a boost, but the addiction has grown so deep it now eats away at the very idea of self-government.
In a new piece at Governing, Tony Woodlief of the Center for Practical Federalism, lays it out clearly: the path to restoring genuine local control begins with weaning states off federal funds.
I like how Woodlief uses the language in state constitutions as an indictment against the governing officials that have ceded so much authority to Washington.
In 1998, Louisiana’s legislature added a sovereignty clause to the state’s constitution that promises its citizens “the sole and exclusive right of governing themselves as a free and sovereign state.” The constitutions of New Hampshire and Montana, among others, have long contained the same phrasing. Mississippi’s constitution similarly asserts that “the people of this state have the inherent, sole, and exclusive right to regulate the internal government and police thereof.” Rhode Island’s constitution boasts a localist variant, confirming “to the people of every city and town in this state the right of self-government in all local matters.”
“Our elected state leaders know all these things, and yet they’ve made our communities more vulnerable than ever to D.C.’s pathologies,” writes Woodlief. “In many states they did so even as they cut taxes, fashioning themselves as small-government conservatives.”
Some states are finally pushing back. Tennessee reviews federal grants before accepting them. Utah, Nebraska, and Ohio require agencies to plan for funding interruptions. Modest but essential steps to reclaiming some control over the addiction.
Until more states start budgeting like sovereign entities instead of federal subsidiaries, talk of “self-government” rings hollow.
In a recent piece in The Hill, I called the states “satellites” that are “orbiting Washington rather than sovereign governments charting their own course,” a subtle nod to Cold War dynamics that feels like a great descriptor.
Real independence means saying no to federal dollars and allowing states and localities a real chance to chart their own destiny.
— Ray Nothstine
— The Federalism Beat