The Federal Aid system of $500 billion taxpayer dollars goes to Washington each year. Those funds are then sifted through Congress and Federal Bureaucacies then sent back to States somewhat depleted and full of thousands of pages regulations. This Federal expansion into State policy is not only wasteful but goes against the tenth Amendment of our Constitution. Under the Constitution, the federal government has specific limited powers and most government functions are to be left to the states.
The Tenth Amendment embodies federalism, the idea that federal and state governments each have separate areas of activity and that federal responsibilities are "few and defined.
If the over 800 programs of Federal aid to States were shut down State Governments and the Private Sector would fund the programs they felt nessessary and it would save taxpayers billions.
Examples of this wasteful spending are for programs like Team Nutrition Grants $10,038,000, Distance Learning and Telemedicine
$54,410,012,Improving Teacher Quality $2,887,439,000
Healthy Marriage and Responsible Fatherhood$150,000,000
Housing Counseling Assistance $42,000,000, Community Development Block Grants $12,605,900261 Migrant and Seasonal Farmworkers
$80,000,000 Payments for Small Community Air Service $10,000,000
State Indoor Radon Grants $7,438,900 Clean School Bus USA
$6,270,000 Capitalization Grants for Clean Water $886,759,100
National School Lunch $7,457,572,000 Migrant Education State Grants $376,524,000
There are many more that should be and could be funded by State, Local Government or the Private Sector if they are really needed. Federal aid stimulates overspending by the states, requires large bureaucracies to administer, and comes with a web of complex regulations that limit state flexibility. We need someone with alot of guts to tackle this and cut the massive waste.
Comments (3)
Because it keeps Growing Government, and Bigger Government means more fraud and wasteful spending of taxpayer money.
The entire purpose of the constitution, that pesky document, is to outline what power the federal government has. We have so trampled on what states should be doing for themselves that the line is almost gone. EVERYTHING is a federal issue. There should not be a department of education, or agriculture, or Office of Safety.....these should be state functions....if the state wants to fund education at a higher level than another - then so be it.....if they want to have better roads ....then so be it....but, other than the Interstae Highway system - the federal governement should stay the heck out of that business as well....
The bigger the federal government gets, the bigger it has to stay to survive. We must cut off it's head to kill it. (Not a terrorist threat or a threat of violence; not literally),
The bigger government gets or is, the more people it must "enroll" to live on it's "plantation" to depend upon it's entitlements. This ensures the government remains. The more people depend upon the government for their existence, the better chances the people will keep government in power as is. Many poor white and poor black people for generations have been victims of the government in this very manner. They became dependent on government programs and then it became a cycle of poverty for them and their families. Generations became dependent. This is they way the Democratic Party became prominent. They offered more and more entitlement programs and "helped" the poor people who were dependent upon the government instead of giving them a hand up, they gave them a hand out. Now we are seeing the ultimate hand out with the Obama Administration. He wants to make us ALL dependent upon the government. We will all live on the Obama "plantation", the plantation of "Uncle Sam". We won't have to think, we will be told everything; where to work, how much we will make, where to live, who to marry, how many children we can have, what cars to drive, what type of housing we will have, what we will eat, how much electricity we will use, everything will be mandated; right down to how long we will live. The government will become god; or will try to become god. Think about it. Is this what we truly want in America? This has failed in every country except China and they are craving freedom there.