Tax shift shafts local officials

Growing anger with the fiscal irresponsibility of Congress and federal agencies increasingly dominates meetings of the nation's elected officials and their appointed executives -- governors, state legislators, mayors, county commissioners. These are people who live close to voters and, with few exceptions, are required by law to balance their budgets.

The problem: A growing tendency of Congress and the federal bureaucracy to view states and their local governments as mere administrative units of the federal government. That is not the role of the states envisioned by the concept of federalism and "power sharing" that is written into the U.S. Constitution. Nevertheless, the usurpation of state and local authority that began during the term of Chief Justice John Marshall, early in the history of the republic, is picking up steam just as the grievances and the resistance of state and local leaders are reaching critical mass.

Tensions increasingly focus on a specific grievance: Unfunded mandates. Unfunded mandates are where paternalistic federal officials pass laws or promulgate regulations that require state and local governments to establish programs, provide services or otherwise take action but do not provide money to pay for them.

One Western mayor called this the "shift and shaft" approach to government -- where the federal government shifts more and more responsibilities to state and local government but shafts them out of the money to pay the bills. Result: State and local elected officials have to raise taxes, employ more people and, increasingly, cut back on programs that are important to their constituents in order to pay for programs mandated by Congress or the bureaucrats who write the regulations. In fact, federal mandates are the largest single reason for the growth of state and local budgets and bureaucracies over the past decade.

In the past, state and local officials too often accepted their fate and scrambled for ways to comply with federal mandates. That is now beginning to change as state and local officials are refusing to be cast as "compliance officers" for irresponsible spending mandated by members of Congress. State and local officials have been helped along this path by angry voters armed with referenda to limit taxes and spending by governments that are closest to the people.

Larry Naake, head of the National Association of Counties, noted last week that the increasing use of unfunded mandates relieves the federal government of the need to set priorities. According to Naake, the federal government is essentially saying, "We don't want to make the tough choices and we certainly don't want to raise taxes. But you, state and local officials can raise taxes at your level and eliminate your programs to pay for the federal programs we deem are important."

Naake points out that the nation's counties are spending $4.8 billion annually just to comply with 12 unfunded federal mandates -- and that the costs of these 12 programs will increase to $33.7 billion by 1998. "County officials," says Naake, "are losing control of their budgets."

These practices violate nearly every principle of responsibility, accountability and good government. The irrepressible desire of Congress to spend money and usurp authority is giving government at every level a black eye. That's why initiatives to counterbalance the arrogance of federal authority are now being fashioned.