Saturday, March 23, 2019

Cut Federal Grants to States


The US federal government is dead broke with a National Debt tracking at $22 trillion. The federal government must stop spending, but that isn’t happening. 

Most federal spending is unconstitutional. The “enumerated powers” of the federal government have never been legally expanded. Congress simply passed unconstitutional laws and the courts didn’t stop them. The number of federal grants have increased from 2 in 1902 to 1,320 in 2017. 

Congress actually thought that part of their job was to return money to their States. It’s a totally corrupt system. State and Local governments should pay for their own stuff. Until this is enforced, they will continue to piss away your tax dollars.

In 2018, the federal government sent $728 billion to States. Medicare was $433 billion, Child Nutrition $24 billion, disaster relief $20 billion, education for disadvantaged $16 billion, needy family assistance $16 billion, special education $13 billion, children’s health $14 billion, family children’s services (supervision) $11 billion, public transit $10 billion.

Among the income security programs are temporary cash assistance, employment services, and school-provided meals. The percentage of grants to states that is dedicated to income security programs ranged from 18.1 percent in Nebraska to 6.7 percent in Wyoming.

Grants to states for transportation programs showed a wider range than those for income security grants. These grants fund programs such as surface transportation, airport improvements, and Federal Highway Administration programs. The share of total grant funding represented by transportation was highest in Alaska (26.2 percent) and lowest in New York (3.5 percent).

There was a smaller range among states in the percentage of total federal grant dollars that went to education programs, including Title I, special education, and career and technical education. These grants accounted for 9.5 percent of 2018 total grant funding in South Dakota but just 3.9 percent in the District of Columbia.

Health care grants to states for programs other than Medicaid include funding for health insurance to children (i.e., the Children’s Health Insurance Program), access to federally funded health centers, vaccines for children, prevention and treatment of substance abuse, and access to various HIV/AIDS services. These grants made up 7.8 percent of all federal grants in Oklahoma and 2.4 percent in Wyoming.

This category includes funding for a wide range of programs including environmental protection, funding for crime victims, minerals management, community development, and job training and employment for dislocated workers. More than 50 percent of the federal grants to Wyoming fell into this category, largely related to mineral leasing rights to oil and gas extracted from public lands. In New York, just 1.7 percent of federal grants came from this mix of funding.


Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader

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