Intergovernmental Finance.

• Position: Brief Article

The Study of American Federalism at the Turn of the Century

Dilger, Robert Jay

State and Local Government Review, Spring 2000, pp. 98-107.

In this article, author Robert Dilger challenges claims made by politicians and Washington spin doctors who are in the habit of declaring that the era of big government in the United States is over. Dilger cites yearly increases in national government expenditures both absolute and in real, inflation-adjusted dollars since 1980. The same is true for national tax expenditures. The article argues that the following three assumptions are false: 1) national grant-in-aid funding is declining; 2) a "devolution revolution" is taking place or is about to take place, and; 3) the national government typically does not make more than incremental changes in its budgetary allocations from year to year. While the author refutes assertions by some that national grant-in-aid funding is declining, he does point to a redistribution of aid that has created an unanticipated kind of "fend-for-yourself-federalism" in which state and local governments as organized entities are less likely to receive assistance than in the past, but still receive increasing amounts of national assistance in their communities. The second point Dilger addresses is...