Mystifying
One of the frustrations - many frustrations - with the Bush administration is that its actions absolutely defy logic. Take the 2009 budget which was proposed earlier this week. It still manages to increase spending while cutting numerous programs which have vital local benefits (and, one could argue, trim the spending of the very programs Republicans like the president would seem to favor).
Case in point, more cuts to Community Development Block Grants, which are bundles of funding awarded to different communities for their citizens to determine how best to use. Based on the proposed budget, Georgia would see $15 million cut from its CDBG funding for 2009, which is absolutely maddening. Already, Athens-Clarke County routinely sees funding requests for the social service portion of our CDBG in excess of more than $500,000 for what little money exists (which has been steadily falling from $250,000 a few years back to just a shade above $200,000).
Out of any program we currently have at the federal not named 'Social Security' this is one that should be getting more support from the federal level, and not less (and some additional flexibility in allocating funds would be nice, but beggars can't be choosers right now). This is a program which provides federal support with local control, and it's something I'd like to see more of, not less.
Case in point, more cuts to Community Development Block Grants, which are bundles of funding awarded to different communities for their citizens to determine how best to use. Based on the proposed budget, Georgia would see $15 million cut from its CDBG funding for 2009, which is absolutely maddening. Already, Athens-Clarke County routinely sees funding requests for the social service portion of our CDBG in excess of more than $500,000 for what little money exists (which has been steadily falling from $250,000 a few years back to just a shade above $200,000).
Out of any program we currently have at the federal not named 'Social Security' this is one that should be getting more support from the federal level, and not less (and some additional flexibility in allocating funds would be nice, but beggars can't be choosers right now). This is a program which provides federal support with local control, and it's something I'd like to see more of, not less.
posted by Jmac at 10:36 AM
4 Comments:
If you want local control, and I agree with you on that, then localities need to step up and start governing themselves (maybe raise their own local taxes), not hold out their hand for the feds to give them money. That sort of system (feds doling out money to locals, even if it is use-as-you-wish) always screws somebody in a disproportionate way, and so (in the final analysis) can be said to harm the cause of local control.
Speaking of local control, did you read the article in Huff Post about Vermont seceding? Now that's what I'm talking' about.
But as someone who supports federal funding of these initiatives while preserving local control, the CDBG (among others) is the ideal way of achieving that end.
Seeing how it had its roots in Reagan Republicanism (to an extent), it's baffling that it's being cut.
Of course, the other caveat being that localities are trying to govern themselves, but being handicapped by a litany of bureaucratic red tape from the state and federal level (ones imposed by Republican leadership).
Hey, look, I can't wait for the "Balkanization" of America. Let 20 (or 150) new smaller countries emerge from the old empire. As the eccentric philosopher from Dartmouth Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy would have said, history is cyclical and western civilization in general and America in particular is moving back into the 'tribal' period. Bring on secession! Bring on an independent Vermont, a League of the South, a new Republic of Texas, an independnent California, a Pacifica, etc.
To be more polemical, yes, you support federal funding for these initiatives and you support preserving local control, but my point is that you are self-contradicting your...self. Federal funding kills local control; unintended consequences. He who pays the piper calls the tune, and all that.
I support Disney World being cheaper and less crowded, but there is no way to have both of these happen (while maintaining the character of Disney World). My desires are mutually contradictory.
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