When asked what's wrong with letting local school districts decide how best to spend federal education dollars, President Clinton replied, "because it's not their money"
There is much both to argue and agree with in this Herald editorial about the coming of Catamount and the problems that it faces now that Big Daddy down in Washington has cut Vermont's allowance. It seems true that Vermont, like other states, has been pushed into the role of fixing a problem ("cost shift," anyone?) that was created, in large part, by the Feds.
We have all become accustomed -- and numbed -- to a system where Washington hands out money for everything from schools to snowmobile trails, but it is foolish to expect there will be no strings attached. In fact, we increasingly get the strings without the dough. This, anyway, is the argument made by critics of No Child Left Behind and they make a fair case. But then, a long time ago, lonely prophets like Milton Friedman argued that Federal funding of education meant Federal control. He was not uttering a partisan talking point. Rather, he was observing a fact of nature. One that applies to health care as well as education ... and everything else.
Critics of present arrangements have always wondered why money needed to fund essential state services must first make a trip to Washington where the bureaucrats skim some vig and then attach a bunch of regulations and riders to the check before sending it back.
If the states are really to become "little laboratories" for the testing of various policy ideas (an excellent idea) then maybe they should be allowed to keep more of the money at home and do their own taxing. That way, they could also do the financing and when Big Sugar attempted to elbow in with new rules and regulations, the duly elected governor of, say, Vermont could firmly and politely, tell the President, down the the imperial city, "Listen, Pal, it's not your money, so take a hike."
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