Downsizing Blog
National Journal reports [$] that the administration wants more rural development programs in the next farm bill. Responding to congressional criticism that the administration isn’t sufficiently attuned to rural America’s needs, USDA secretary Tom Vilsack said that subsidizing biofuel facilities and high speed Internet service are “about a renaissance of the rural community.”
National Journal reports [$] that the administration wants more rural development programs in the next farm bill. Responding to congressional criticism that the administration isn’t sufficiently attuned to rural America’s needs, USDA secretary Tom Vilsack said that subsidizing biofuel facilities and high speed Internet service are “about a renaissance of the rural community.”
The 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act sparked a huge increase in federal education spending and regulations. The legislation’s Title I was supposed to provide aid to K–12 schools in high-poverty areas, but by the end of the 1960s it was providing aid to 60 percent of the nation’s school districts. Today, Title I is the largest federal subsidy program for K–12 education.
Policy wonks on the left are sometimes willing to concede that particular ideas they supported for micromanaging the economy haven’t worked out as planned. But they are rarely willing to admit that there are deeper problems with central planning in general.
Rep. George Miller (D-CA) has
introduced a bill that would give state and local governments another $100 billion to prevent public sector job cuts. The bill was written at the behest of the U.S. Conference of Mayors and other local special interest groups addicted to federal largesse.
U.S. News & World Report’s columnist, Paul Bedard, reports that Transportation secretary Ray LaHood told him that it’s fun playing Santa Claus to states and cities around the nation.
The Economist’s Free Exchange blog asks: “[W]hy isn’t federal aid to states more popular, and popular enough to get through Congress, given that nearly every American lives in one?”
Tea partiers take note: at the forefront of any effort to reduce the size of the federal government should be the devolvement of federal programs to the states. Achieving this may seem like mission impossible given the
states’ addiction to federal money. However, there are signs that the idea of returning the relationship between the federal government and the states to that which the Founders prescribed is starting to gain some currency.
The same federal agency that brought us
monumental failures like public housing wants to play a bigger role in fostering so-called regional “smart growth.” HUD secretary Shaun Donovan recently traveled to Portland, Oregon to announce the Obama administration’s new Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities.
The same federal agency that brought us
monumental failures like public housing wants to play a bigger role in fostering so-called regional “smart growth.” HUD secretary Shaun Donovan recently traveled to Portland, Oregon to announce the Obama administration’s new Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities.
Pages
Zircon - This is a contributing Drupal Theme
Design by
WeebPal.
