Local Control
The
loss of local control and the use of local governments as agents of the state
to implement mandated programs has increased in direct response to the loss
of local authority over funding. Education spending is a prime example of
this problem, where much of the heralded increases in school funding has come
with strings attached that specify how the money must be spent. And the
current financial problems of city and county governments are primarily the
result of state raids on local funding.
The
state’s appropriation of local revenues has had the even more serious
consequence of disconnecting the responsibility for collecting taxes from the
responsibility for local government spending. This has shifted the
perspective of local governments from a goal of balancing local needs and tax
collections to one of maximizing the spending of state handouts; and has
created an attitude that each unit of local government must spend all of the
state money that it can get to maximize benefits for local taxpayers, with
the understanding that state tax dollars that are not spent in one place will
be spent somewhere else. As a result, local governments, and schools in
particular, have much less incentive to evaluate and prioritize programs that
are supported by funds from state, rather than local, sources.
The
solution to problems created by state meddling in local issues and the lack
of responsibility for local government spending will require a two-step
approach. First, we must restore the direct connection between local
government taxes and services by restricting the state’s role in funding of
local agencies to that of a collection agency for taxes that are
automatically returned to local governments – without strings attached. And
second, state government must be held completely accountable for the funding
of state mandated programs.
Welfare
Public
assistance for able-bodied workers should be viewed as a temporary bridge
that allows workers to cross over into self-supporting jobs. This is now taking
place in the CalWORKs program that was created in response to the welfare
reform legislation initiated by Republicans in Congress. However, we must
also recognize that access to childcare is essential for the successful
employment of working mothers and single parents. Another goal of welfare
reform should be that the transition from welfare to work does not cause
workers to be less well off than when they were relying on welfare payments.
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