August 23, 1995
There are two questions, easily answered, to determine whether or not the new Republican majority will become big-government Democrats in elephant garb.
The first is, From whence comes the money the federal government spends on welfare, food stamps, school lunches, and other entitlements? If you said, It's taken from the earnings of people like you and me, who pay tribute to Washington, go to the head of the class.
The next question is, What's one of our constitutional guarantees? Article IV, Section 4, says in part, “The United States Shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government.” That means the people and their states are sovereign but bound together with common interests as principals who delegate certain powers to their agent—the central government.
With those two basic questions answered, let's evaluate the Republican cutting-down-the-size-of-government agenda.
Block-granting entitlement programs is the Republican newspeak. Instead of Congress and its Washington bureaucrats dictating to the states how welfare, food stamps, school lunches, and other federal programs are run, Republicans propose sending the money to the states in the form of block grants. With strings attached, governors and mayors will be permitted to experiment and design programs they think work best in their states and local communities.
Aside from Democrats, disgruntled federal bureaucrats, handout advocates, and lobbyists who see their empires crumbling, there is fairly widespread support, particularly from governors and mayors, who want the handout power and who'd like their states to function as “fifty laboratories.”
Block grants are an improvement over the status quo, but, like other Republican proposals for greater federalism and more constitutional government, they're timid and not likely to have long-run success. After all, a future Congress can increase the strings and control. Republicans are simply talking clipping noxious weeds when, as every homeowner knows, getting rid of weeds requires uprooting and killing. If they're simply clipped, bureaucracies, like weeds, will grow back stronger and healthier.
If the new Republican Congress had more character and foresight, it would work on getting Washington out of the handout picture altogether. Here's a rough guide of what it might do.
First, figure out federal spending on the programs it proposes to block grant. Then, enact personal income tax reductions of an equivalent amount. Then, Brother Newt can tell governors and mayors that the money the fed used to take from the citizens of your state is now back in their pockets. If you think a particular entitlement program is important for your state, then you enact state and local taxes to get the money.
Of course governors and local officials would go ape for a very simple reason. No politician likes to be known for raising taxes. Moreover, social activists would have far less success getting governors and local politicians to raise taxes to support their socialist agenda.
Citizens could make a more direct comparison between the value of the programs and their pocketbooks. It's much easier for social activists to get remote politicians in Washington to impose burdens on states and local communities. After all, for example, if House minority leader Richard Gephart shepherds a tax increase through Congress, what does he care about the anger and resentment of the citizens of Atlanta, Georgia? Georgia's governor and Atlanta's mayor would be far more sensitive to their feelings and opinions.
If Republicans really respect the Constitution, and its guarantee of a republic, they'll stop this block-grant talk and replace it with entitlement-program elimination and tax cuts. Or is that too much to expect?