Tuesday, November 30, 2004
Federal Vs. State
For much of American history the cry of "States Rights" was used to mask arguments for the continuation of slavery and more recently, racial segregation. Many on the left, especially those that remember first hand the struggles of the civil rights era, worked to strengthen the power of the Federal government to combat the ugly stain of legally sanctioned racism. As a result we as a nation created many federal programs to combat such problems as poverty, racism, lack of rural electrification, and to extend educational opportunities in under served areas. These programs, in many cases, were extremely successful, but the problems that they addressed have not magically disappeared. Is it time for a different approach?
I have been contemplating for many years now the common practice of the federal government extorting state legislature compliance in order for them to receive federal funds, not just for social welfare programs but for all manner of spending. A well known example of this practice was the mandate for maximum speed limits of 55 mph to avoid losing federal highway funds. This one size fits all solution was very unpopular especially for anyone who has driven across a state like Colorado.
It is one thing for the Federal government to step in when a state is violating the constitutional rights of its citizens but quite another when it seeks to make state legislatures irrelevant. I believe that we have reached this point in education. The increasing demands put on states by such federal programs as the No Child Left Behind Act have led many legislators, governors, teachers and parents to feel that they no longer have the control that they need to improve their own schools. Schools are constantly having to justify and beg for "federal funds" for education. It is easy to forget that these "federal funds" are state residents' tax dollars, sent to Washington in order for us to beg on bended knees for the same funds to be returned to us.
After this past election a lot of people on the left have been discussing on-line the interesting fact that most "red states" received more federal funds than they sent to Washington in the form of federal income taxes. This led me to focus on education because this is the one issue that most often dominates local government priority lists. In my state of Oregon it seems that for the last few years every dollar of federal taxes that we sent to DC we got about one dollar in return in federal spending here. This sounds like we have no room to complain except when you consider that the way these funds are spent is based on the mettlesome influence of the representatives of 49 other states.
According to a recent article by Lewis Lapham in Harper's magazine the smallest 26 states in terms of population account for only 22% of the nation's population but are able to exercise legislative control in the US Senate over the remaining 78% of the country. These small states are most frequently red states. The country is clearly bitterly divided at this time. Unfortunately this bitterness is increased by the fact that too many people pay attention exclusively to the federal government while ignoring state and local elections. One of the reasons that this happens is that people understand that as the power of the Federal government, especially the Executive branch of the federal government, grows there is a corresponding weakening of the power of state governments. This bitterness would be somewhat tempered if the electorate felt that at least they could exercise control over local matters in their own states, be they" red", "blue", or purple. Alas they cannot. The day after the election in the city of Portland there was scant solace in the fact that 72% of the city voted for Kerry, or that for the first time in many years Democrats gained control of the Oregon State Senate.
As a liberal I am certainly not opposed to federal government efforts at improving social welfare. However, as a precinct committee person I have seen just how out of touch citizens are with their own state governments. If we give state governments more autonomy I believe we will enliven local participation and we will have 50 vibrant democratic experiments rather than one federal program force fed to all classrooms in the country by folks far removed from local problems, cultures and concerns. We now have national federally-mandated standards in Mathematics, Reading and Writing. It is hard to imagine anyone being satisfied with federal standards in the teaching of Social Studies but they are soon coming to a classroom near you.
Perhaps it is time to consider transferring the job of education back to the states. Give state legislatures both the responsibility and the authority to manage education in their states. Perhaps it is time to abolish the US Department of Education and hand over control of education to each state.
Radical thought isn't it? Rather than tax state residents, transfer the money to DC, have the use of the money debated by creationists, segregationists, sex education advocates, abstinence only adherents, right wing Christians, liberals, and conservatives each trying to one up the other to wear the label of "the education candidate" and to deliver for their own constituencies why not let each state legislature control these funds in the first place?
What I am suggesting is not reducing education funding but to have tax revenues for education come from state income taxes not federal. I am proposing for reducing federal taxes and increasing state taxes by the same amount. Fiscally it would be a zero sum gain (for most "Blue states" anyway) but each state would have no-strings-attached control over education spending.
Do we really believe that state governments cannot handle this responsibility? Results will differ by state but results differ greatly already. States will benefit by adopting differing strategies and then being able to compare results, adopting ideas that work and rejecting those that do not. There still should be a roll for the federal government in education. Perhaps federal involvement would be along the lines of FEMA's (Federal Emergency Management Agency) roll in disaster relief. Disaster could strike in any state at any time. Citizens of every state pool resources in order to fund FEMA so a central agency can come quickly to the aid of citizens in any state suffering a disaster. Similarly federal funds can and should be accumulated in order to assist in education funding for regions hit hard by an eroding tax base or other such hardship that puts the education of children in jeopardy. A state which is doing well economically would get zero dollars for education from the federal government.
A big problem with this proposal is the knee jerk Republican opposition to tax increases. A Republican in the US House or Senate will happily stand up for lower federal taxes but will his fellow party member elected to the state legislature be willing to explain that he is for higher state taxes but lower federal ones? After the Bush tax cuts reduced state revenues, due to the fact that most states tie their own taxes to Federal taxes, Republicans running at the state level refused to agree to an increase in state taxes because they identify themselves as the party that always opposes higher taxes. The average tax payer sends almost twice as much money to the IRS as they do to their State Capital. To me this equation should probably be reversed. But how to reverse it if the Republicans insist on demanding lower Federal and State taxes?
A return to local control is certainly not an original idea at all, unfortunately it is often the cry of local relatively homogeneous communities that want to"return god to the classroom". As mentioned in my opening paragraph the argument has also unfortunately been made by very unsavory, racist characters. Keep in mind that nothing in my proposal should be read to suggest that States be given a free ride to establish policies that violate rights guaranteed by the US Constitution. We would continue to fight to preserve those rights, as we do now, in all states.
My wife is a public school teacher and we both feel that there is hardly any issue more important than education. I do not believe that people like Senators Trent Lott and Jim Bunning are helping her more effectively teach poor rural children in her school. I put a lot more faith in the people of Oregon than in these clowns that no one in our great state would have ever elected to state wide office. When we send education tax dollars to DC and then back out to the states clearly much of this revenue is drained away before it reaches the classroom. Our schools are in great need, federal interference in education spending drains a tremendous amount of revenue away from our teachers and children and into administrative costs. States could handle this spending priority in a much more efficient manner and any state legislature that fails to do so would be quickly thrown out of office by angry parents.
My mind is far from made up on this and I would welcome any comments that anyone has. The US Department of Education may be making great contributions that I am unaware of. Any thoughts?
For much of American history the cry of "States Rights" was used to mask arguments for the continuation of slavery and more recently, racial segregation. Many on the left, especially those that remember first hand the struggles of the civil rights era, worked to strengthen the power of the Federal government to combat the ugly stain of legally sanctioned racism. As a result we as a nation created many federal programs to combat such problems as poverty, racism, lack of rural electrification, and to extend educational opportunities in under served areas. These programs, in many cases, were extremely successful, but the problems that they addressed have not magically disappeared. Is it time for a different approach?
I have been contemplating for many years now the common practice of the federal government extorting state legislature compliance in order for them to receive federal funds, not just for social welfare programs but for all manner of spending. A well known example of this practice was the mandate for maximum speed limits of 55 mph to avoid losing federal highway funds. This one size fits all solution was very unpopular especially for anyone who has driven across a state like Colorado.
It is one thing for the Federal government to step in when a state is violating the constitutional rights of its citizens but quite another when it seeks to make state legislatures irrelevant. I believe that we have reached this point in education. The increasing demands put on states by such federal programs as the No Child Left Behind Act have led many legislators, governors, teachers and parents to feel that they no longer have the control that they need to improve their own schools. Schools are constantly having to justify and beg for "federal funds" for education. It is easy to forget that these "federal funds" are state residents' tax dollars, sent to Washington in order for us to beg on bended knees for the same funds to be returned to us.
After this past election a lot of people on the left have been discussing on-line the interesting fact that most "red states" received more federal funds than they sent to Washington in the form of federal income taxes. This led me to focus on education because this is the one issue that most often dominates local government priority lists. In my state of Oregon it seems that for the last few years every dollar of federal taxes that we sent to DC we got about one dollar in return in federal spending here. This sounds like we have no room to complain except when you consider that the way these funds are spent is based on the mettlesome influence of the representatives of 49 other states.
According to a recent article by Lewis Lapham in Harper's magazine the smallest 26 states in terms of population account for only 22% of the nation's population but are able to exercise legislative control in the US Senate over the remaining 78% of the country. These small states are most frequently red states. The country is clearly bitterly divided at this time. Unfortunately this bitterness is increased by the fact that too many people pay attention exclusively to the federal government while ignoring state and local elections. One of the reasons that this happens is that people understand that as the power of the Federal government, especially the Executive branch of the federal government, grows there is a corresponding weakening of the power of state governments. This bitterness would be somewhat tempered if the electorate felt that at least they could exercise control over local matters in their own states, be they" red", "blue", or purple. Alas they cannot. The day after the election in the city of Portland there was scant solace in the fact that 72% of the city voted for Kerry, or that for the first time in many years Democrats gained control of the Oregon State Senate.
As a liberal I am certainly not opposed to federal government efforts at improving social welfare. However, as a precinct committee person I have seen just how out of touch citizens are with their own state governments. If we give state governments more autonomy I believe we will enliven local participation and we will have 50 vibrant democratic experiments rather than one federal program force fed to all classrooms in the country by folks far removed from local problems, cultures and concerns. We now have national federally-mandated standards in Mathematics, Reading and Writing. It is hard to imagine anyone being satisfied with federal standards in the teaching of Social Studies but they are soon coming to a classroom near you.
Perhaps it is time to consider transferring the job of education back to the states. Give state legislatures both the responsibility and the authority to manage education in their states. Perhaps it is time to abolish the US Department of Education and hand over control of education to each state.
Radical thought isn't it? Rather than tax state residents, transfer the money to DC, have the use of the money debated by creationists, segregationists, sex education advocates, abstinence only adherents, right wing Christians, liberals, and conservatives each trying to one up the other to wear the label of "the education candidate" and to deliver for their own constituencies why not let each state legislature control these funds in the first place?
What I am suggesting is not reducing education funding but to have tax revenues for education come from state income taxes not federal. I am proposing for reducing federal taxes and increasing state taxes by the same amount. Fiscally it would be a zero sum gain (for most "Blue states" anyway) but each state would have no-strings-attached control over education spending.
Do we really believe that state governments cannot handle this responsibility? Results will differ by state but results differ greatly already. States will benefit by adopting differing strategies and then being able to compare results, adopting ideas that work and rejecting those that do not. There still should be a roll for the federal government in education. Perhaps federal involvement would be along the lines of FEMA's (Federal Emergency Management Agency) roll in disaster relief. Disaster could strike in any state at any time. Citizens of every state pool resources in order to fund FEMA so a central agency can come quickly to the aid of citizens in any state suffering a disaster. Similarly federal funds can and should be accumulated in order to assist in education funding for regions hit hard by an eroding tax base or other such hardship that puts the education of children in jeopardy. A state which is doing well economically would get zero dollars for education from the federal government.
A big problem with this proposal is the knee jerk Republican opposition to tax increases. A Republican in the US House or Senate will happily stand up for lower federal taxes but will his fellow party member elected to the state legislature be willing to explain that he is for higher state taxes but lower federal ones? After the Bush tax cuts reduced state revenues, due to the fact that most states tie their own taxes to Federal taxes, Republicans running at the state level refused to agree to an increase in state taxes because they identify themselves as the party that always opposes higher taxes. The average tax payer sends almost twice as much money to the IRS as they do to their State Capital. To me this equation should probably be reversed. But how to reverse it if the Republicans insist on demanding lower Federal and State taxes?
A return to local control is certainly not an original idea at all, unfortunately it is often the cry of local relatively homogeneous communities that want to"return god to the classroom". As mentioned in my opening paragraph the argument has also unfortunately been made by very unsavory, racist characters. Keep in mind that nothing in my proposal should be read to suggest that States be given a free ride to establish policies that violate rights guaranteed by the US Constitution. We would continue to fight to preserve those rights, as we do now, in all states.
My wife is a public school teacher and we both feel that there is hardly any issue more important than education. I do not believe that people like Senators Trent Lott and Jim Bunning are helping her more effectively teach poor rural children in her school. I put a lot more faith in the people of Oregon than in these clowns that no one in our great state would have ever elected to state wide office. When we send education tax dollars to DC and then back out to the states clearly much of this revenue is drained away before it reaches the classroom. Our schools are in great need, federal interference in education spending drains a tremendous amount of revenue away from our teachers and children and into administrative costs. States could handle this spending priority in a much more efficient manner and any state legislature that fails to do so would be quickly thrown out of office by angry parents.
My mind is far from made up on this and I would welcome any comments that anyone has. The US Department of Education may be making great contributions that I am unaware of. Any thoughts?
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