Editor, The News Journal
While I’m pleased that Sen. Robert Byrd and Rep. David Obey have said they support eliminating earmarks, Congress must do much more to fix our federal fiscal situation. Earmarks can be shifted to other grants, effecting no reduction in spending. Why not limit or eliminate federal grants, and return those functions to state and local governments?
Many grants were enacted to address problems that states refuse to deal with, or could not deal with because of their ineffective revenue systems. Many of the original problems have been alleviated, and state and most local governments now have effective revenue systems. So funding should be returned to state and local responsibility.
The grant system is wasteful. A large part of every dollar collected for grants at the federal level is spent processing that money. Successive levels of government have established expensive administrative functions that can swallow up to half of the funds approved by Congress.
The grant process can restrict how funds may be spent, so that it often negates the purpose of the grant. It fosters the idea of “free government money” rather than hard-earned cash that must be spent with care.
The grant process removes people at the local level from deciding how best to address the problems they face and how to pay for the programs they want to address their needs, effectively negating the 10th Amendment to our Constitution.
Steve McClain