Get states off the federal dole: why are U.S. taxpayers footing the bill for surveillance cameras in Alaska?

• Author: de Rugy, Veronique
• Position: Columns - Column

IN THE WAKE of Hurricane Sandy and the havoc it wrought on New York, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) said they would ask the federal government to cover at least 90 percent--and perhaps all--of the cleanup and recovery costs. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) asked the same for the Garden State. "This was not a New York disaster, or a New Jersey disaster or a Connecticut disaster, but a national disaster, and FEMA and the federal government should be providing help to the region to the full extent they can," Schumer declared on November 1. "I will continue to push the feds to reimburse the city and state for the full costs of repair and recovery for all aspects of the disaster."

These reflexive calls for Washington to pick up the tab underscore one of the greatest shifts of power in American politics during the last four decades: the transition from state and local autonomy to federal subsidy and control. This centralization of government was made possible largely by grants-in-aid, money provided by the federal government to state and local governments or private parties. They have become the third largest category in the federal budget, trailing only Social Security and national defense.

According to the Congressional Research Service, there were 1,724 of these grants in fiscal year 2011, paying for things such as bridges, teachers, Medicaid, farm subsidies, and abstinence programs. The total cost of these federal grants was $515 billion, up 160 percent in real terms since the beginning of the 1990s and nearly 60 percent since 2000. After the adoption of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a.k.a. the 2009 stimulus bill, grant spending increased by 16 percent in 2009 and 11 percent in 2010--the highest annual spikes in history.

Grants are not merely a substantial part of the federal budget. They have become like a drug for the states. The federal share of total state spending rose from 25.7 percent in 2001 to 34.1 percent in 2011. State and local governments drink up roughly 80 percent of total federal grant spending, with the remainder going mostly to nonprofit organizations providing services at the state and local levels. In a February 2011 Tax and Budget Bulletin, Chris Edwards of the Cato Institute found that in 2010 the federal government was micromanaging primary education with 109 grant programs costing taxpayers a total of $86.5 billion. Yet under the Constitution, K-12 education is a state and local...