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Tom Reingold
Citizen
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 2107
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 11, 2004 - 3:18 pm: |     |
I hear a lot of complaints about unfunded mandates. Are they categorically wrong? I don't think so, but I think they can get excessive. There are prices to live in society, and that doesn't mean that a higher authority should necessarily fund that which the authority says we must do.
Tom Reingold the prissy-pants
There is nothing
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las
Citizen
Username: Las
Post Number: 15
Registered: 10-2003
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 11, 2004 - 3:26 pm: | |
Yeah, Tom, that sounds great. |
tjohn
Citizen
Username: Tjohn
Post Number: 2252
Registered: 12-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 11, 2004 - 4:42 pm: | |
I would go on a case by case basis. For starters, I would get the Feds out of education and the arts and refund that money to individual states in the proportion to which each state pays federal taxes. |
tom
Citizen
Username: Tom
Post Number: 1955
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 11, 2004 - 7:19 pm: | |
Good, more for us! |
Tom Reingold
Citizen
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 2268
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Monday, March 1, 2004 - 4:24 pm: | |
Safety codes are an example of unfunded mandates. For example, there are electrical codes and fire codes. Standards go up, in general, leading property owners to incur more costs each year. That's the price you pay to own property.
So why is it wrong for the federal government to mandate things without funding them, such as NCLB (the No Child Left Behind Act)?
Tom Reingold the prissy-pants
There is nothing
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tom
Citizen
Username: Tom
Post Number: 2104
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Monday, March 1, 2004 - 4:49 pm: | |
The part that's unfunded is the enforcement and implementation. When a state or city implements a fire code or electric code, they hire inspectors to ensure compliance. The situation with NCLB is the Feds are putting in place a slate of standards which have to be enforced and programs to be implemented, but making the states pay for all or part of them. |
Tom Reingold
Citizen
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 2271
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Monday, March 1, 2004 - 4:57 pm: | |
Still, I don't see anything wrong with the principle. Requirements increase, and that's a fact of life. My kids have to do more chores each year as they get older. They often think it's a bum deal, but it's good for them and the whole family.
NCLB may be flawed, but I don't think the unfundedness of it is the biggest flaw.
Tom Reingold the prissy-pants
There is nothing
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tom
Citizen
Username: Tom
Post Number: 2105
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Monday, March 1, 2004 - 5:02 pm: | |
An unfunded mandate is more like, you tell your kids they have to mow the lawn, but you won't buy a lawnmower.
There's nothing in principle wrong with the mandate, but you have to put your money where your mouth is, so to speak. |
Cato Nova
Citizen
Username: Cato_nova
Post Number: 76
Registered: 12-2003
| | Posted on Monday, March 1, 2004 - 6:06 pm: | |
An unfunded mandate refers to a federal or state requirement imposed on localities which requires more resources to comply with than are supplied by the mandating jurisdiction. (As opposed to fire codes, which are standards that individuals have to comply with). For example, the feds may say: Each retarded student should be supplied with 12 separate tutors. This requirement would likely bankrupt local governments.
Unfunded mandates are almost always unfair, since they allow the requiring body to claim credit for something another governmental body has to deal with. They are often designed to cause harm, such as NCLB.
NCLB is obviously designed to harm public education by financially penalizing public schools that have additional, and often irrational obligations that are poorly measured. NCLB is designed to defund public education so that religous schools can get public funding. |
tom
Citizen
Username: Tom
Post Number: 2107
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Monday, March 1, 2004 - 11:11 pm: | |
In case you haven't seen Horoshak's memo on the budget, here's an excerpt demonstrating how it hits home:
quote:My proposal calls for a general fund budget of $80,325,350, an 8% increase over last year. This rise is
driven by factors such as increases in health insurance, salaries, energy and unfunded mandates (e.g., No
Child Left Behind, special education). The proposed budget includes cost savings and efficiencies (e.g.,
elimination of four central administration positions) and several new initiatives (e.g., more teachers for
increased elective offerings at CHS; an additional child study team; technology upgrades).
emphasis added |
argon_smythe
Citizen
Username: Argon_smythe
Post Number: 119
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 2, 2004 - 11:46 am: | |
An unfunded mandate is a mechanism by which federal legislators may control state tax spending. Whether it's "fair" or not is beside the point. The issue is how much autonomy should state governments have over their own budgets? You generally don't see these things going down or going away, so each year you have a potential erosion factor whereby less and less of a state government's spending may be directed by the state government. Is this what we want?
Tom, I take issue with your categorization of the federal government as "higher authority." I think the relationship is more complicated than that and that in actuality, the fact that all rights not specifically granted to the fed government default to the states, serves as an important check and balance in this relationship. Even in the judicial branch, it is not a clear and static hierarchy. Federal and state governments are separate entities, ie a state government is not an agency of the federal government. So I take issue with the assumption that the federal government should even have the authority to make such mandates, though it does appear there at least a clear history of it taking place and of states accepting it.
However, note that in most cases, these mandates are NOT actually mandatory, but instead are almost always coercive. Make your state speed limit 55, or you'll be cut off from substantial federal highway funding. Implement standardized testing, or federal education funds will be cut off. States presumably have the right to go it alone on these initiatives, but usually the amount of $ threatened to be withheld is too much for the states to bear.
So, finally, "unfunded mandates" succeed because more often than not they are offers the states can't refuse. The term is really shorthand for a coercive manipulation of funds, to get states to spend their money in a way the federal government wants them to. In the case of 55 MPH, there was broad backlash and it eventually failed, and now you have states setting their own speed limits based on factors more unique to their particular roadways.
The question should not be is this fair, but rather is this particular practice becoming too unbalanced and too unchecked, and therefore providing the federal government with too much indirect control over state government budgets? Is it upsetting the balance of power?
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