State vs.Federal Programs

December 28, 2016 6:16 AM

I'm having an off and on discussion with a business associate about the election and it's potential repercussions. We're both anti-Trump, but he's wait and see calm about it, where I am just barely below freak the fuck out level. We seem to be having a relatively informative and productive time of it, but I just got stuck on one particular point: the argument against smaller federal government.

I personally am all for big government. Huge government, in fact. I feel that the govs main role should be to protect and support the wellbeing of it's population and environment through various programs and regulatory agencies.

He has a different view. He describes himself as liberal with a fiscal conservatism. While I usually interpret this as a cover for I-got-mine-ism, I don't think that's the situation here. His fiscal conservatism is based solely on his belief that the federal government should step out of many of the social service programs and leave that up to the individual states. His argument for this is that there is too much waste in the larger federal system than there would be on state level and that states would be more informed about their own needs, thus using the money more effectively.

When I google this, I come up with several instances where individual states have cut welfare or food stamp funding, but that doesn't mean that under a conservative leadership the federal government wouldn't do the same (I'm quite sure they will, in fact), so not sure how strong that argument is.

I've always had this vague idea that the wealthier states contribute more in federal taxes which flow through to support the less wealthy states. This to me is a pretty big reason to maintain most programs on a federal level, but I guess this could be construed into states being force fed these programs against their will? Is this necessarily a bad thing? Is this a nanny state versus independent state thing?

My question: What is the advantage of these programs (or any, really) being regulated on a federal level as opposed to state level? Why is it a bad idea to drop many of the federally funded programs down to state level? Why shouldn't the states be left to manage themselves more?

TIA, I admittedly hadn't given much thought about this specific aspect of government previously.

posted by newpotato to Law & Government (15 answers total)

What is the advantage of these programs (or any, really) being regulated on a federal level as opposed to state level?

Because the people who need it most are the least able to move somewhere that it's available. Ask your friend why a 13-year-old living in poverty in South Dakota is more or less deserving of help than a 13-year-old living in poverty in California.

(Side note: I'm seeing a lot more use of the word "federal", and I think it's a conscious choice by the right to use it in place of the word "national", because "federal" registers as "in Washington DC" while "national" registers as "everywhere".)
posted by Etrigan at 6:49 AM on December 28, 2016 [15 favorites]

Best answer: One of the biggest advantages to running anti-poverty aid programs (including food stamps/SNAP and Medicaid) federally rather than at the state level is that the federal government can have deficit spending while states have to have a balanced budget every year. (That means that in any given year, the federal government can spend more than it is receiving in taxes, but states cannot do the same - they can only spend the money they receive in taxes.)

During recessions or economic downturns, the demand for these aid programs typically spikes at the exact same time that tax receipts are going down, since lots of people lose their jobs. Many/most economists would argue that the ability of the federal government to increase funding to these programs even as taxes fall is a powerful stabilizing influence on the economy, preventing recessions from being even worse than they are. Pushing these programs back down the state level completely loses this ability, and makes it virtually certain that when there is an economic downturn, states are forced to cut benefits and tighten eligibility so they are spending less on these services than they were when the economy was humming along well.
posted by iminurmefi at 6:53 AM on December 28, 2016 [23 favorites]

Best answer: Ask your friend why a 13-year-old living in poverty in South Dakota is more or less deserving of help than a 13-year-old living in poverty in California.

Or even more specifically, why a 13 year old living in poverty in Nevada is more or less deserving of help than a 13 year old living a mile away in California.

At some level this is about what services and rights you think people deserve at a baseline level for being Americans (you can make a larger argument about human rights which I think is worthwhile but outside the scope of this). And as states go broke, they cut these services. The feds are more likely to keep these services going for longer. So for a few examples of things being managed at a state level (though not all about social services...)

- Voting is mainly managed at a state level and what this means is that more racist states (let's be honest) have been gradually disenfranchising people of color over the past set of years since the Voting rights Act basically said "You can't be racist about giving people the vote" You could make an argument that it's not racist it's classist (i.e. anti poor people), but the outcomes are that fewer black people vote and the people making these rules know this. Another thought experiment: why should your right to vote for President with ease be based on your state of residence? If you are in prison should you be able to vote? Some states say yes and some say no, that's bullshit.
- Health care is managed at a state level meaning that if you are disabled in SOME states you have a right to assisted independent living and in some states you have to be institutionalized if you want your health care to pay for it. This is bullshit, these rights should be equalized among states.
- Being part of society is being force fed some stuff against your will, tough shit. Things like public education, public libraries, clean air and drinking water and roads and bridges that don't fall down. These systems are either managed at a federal level (as far as minimum standards) or at least there are regulatory agencies that oversee their safety levels. This is actually more efficient. Having one EPA with regional branches working off of one rulebook is a lot better than having fifty varieties of EPA who have to meet and decide on things and fight about it and who have different rules for who is in charge and who are all independently susceptible to corruption and cronyism.

Dropping this stuff to state level really is I-got-mine-ism because it's basically saying it's okay for places to drop the standards we currently have below the minimum they're set at (for food stamps, for social security, for medical care, for roads, for bridges, for water) and the people who are the least able to resist this (by moving) are people already hurt by structural poverty, racism and other societal disadvantages.
posted by jessamyn at 7:31 AM on December 28, 2016 [36 favorites]

Just one thing among many, but:

What is the advantage of these programs (or any, really) being regulated on a federal level as opposed to state level?

The federal government is less likely to be actively racist or do actively racist things.

Why is it a bad idea to drop many of the federally funded programs down to state level?

State governments are much more likely to do racist or racist-appeasing things with those policies.

Why shouldn't the states be left to manage themselves more?

Because lots of states do horrifically racist shit unless and until the feds make them stop.

there is too much waste in the larger federal system

There's not any good reason to think this. Straight-up federal programs are generally pretty efficiently run, especially transfer programs like SocSec or Medicare. It's when you get into mixed programs like TANF and Medicaid that states start doing dumb shit, but dumb shit that racists like, such spending $X on forcing every TANF applicant to do a drug test in order to save $X/10 or $X/100 by kicking drug users off it.

iminurmefi is also right to note that shifting to actually state funded programs would be super extra stupid because it would basically mean the end of countercyclical economic policy, because states almost uniformly have annually balanced budget requirements because state voters are stupid.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:48 AM on December 28, 2016 [10 favorites]

His argument for this is that there is too much waste in the larger federal system than there would be on state level and that states would be more informed about their own needs, thus using the money more effectively.

He really needs to back this up with actual facts, though. I know it's a point of faith that the Federal government is rife with waste, but there's never been any actual, verifiable accounting of anything that would equal the level of anger the right holds dear. There also has to be an agreed-upon definition of waste. One side's waste is another side's necessary expenditure.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:54 AM on December 28, 2016 [6 favorites]

Minor point of correction to the discussion of balanced state budgets:

It's actually pretty complicated. Many states have it, but not every one. Even for the states that do supposedly have one, it means very different things in different states. There are also arguments among government nerds about what counts as a balanced budget provision. See this report, in particular, for a broad survey of the issue.

But the general point stands.
posted by joyceanmachine at 8:31 AM on December 28, 2016

I agree with the points above. But if you find your friend's arguments appealing, try thinking about them as not necessarily wrong in theory, but only in practice—in the context of the current United States.

For example, in Canada a lot of programs are managed at the provincial level, but in different ways from the US. The federal government takes money from rich provinces to give to poor ones, to ensure everyone gets similar levels of services. In important areas, provinces are in charge, but the federal government establishes baselines that each province must meet. And Canadian provinces are able to run budget deficits, so they don't have to engage in austerity budgeting during recessions.

This arguably mitigates the disadvantages of province-level control, while also preserving advantages: Each province can still run things in the ways that are most appropriate for its populace. Voters may feel closer to their representatives. And provinces can innovate on new programs, which is how Canada's public health care program started. (Of course Canada's no utopia, and we still have many debates about the appropriate level of provincial vs. federal control.)

The point is, you can continue to think to yourself "local government can be useful!" without necessarily agreeing that it's appropriate for current programs in the US. It might be productive to talk to your friend about how he thinks the US could mitigate the problems with state control of programs, maybe you can come to some agreement.

If you want to do more research on your own, the term to search for is federalism.
posted by vasi at 8:48 AM on December 28, 2016 [4 favorites]

Best answer: His fiscal conservatism is based solely on his belief that the federal government should step out of many of the social service programs and leave that up to the individual states. His argument for this is that there is too much waste in the larger federal system than there would be on state level and that states would be more informed about their own needs, thus using the money more effectively.

OK, first, there are many "federal" programs where the states have no small level of input into how the money gets used. One way would be "block grants" where the Feds basically go, "Here's a bunch of money for [X], you all figure out exactly how to spend it." And, lo and behold, this is exactly how TANF aka Temporary Assistance For Needy Families aka "welfare" works. So right off the bat any problems he has with "waste" in social programs are far more state issues than federal issues.

Then there's, y'know, Government 101, where a lot of federally funded projects are funded because your state's US Congresspeople have argued, negotiated, and bargained for a slice of the federal funding pie that benefits their constituents. Bridges don't get fixed with federal dollars because someone in Washington just threw a dart at a map, they get fixed because your US House Representative made the case for needing millions of dollars to fix a specific bridge before it collapses and kills people.

He's gotten suckered (at best) by the conservative propaganda that "federal funding = some faceless bureaucrat thousands of miles away telling you you have to spend money on something whether you want to or not." But it certainly doesn't have to work like that, and often doesn't. States, or their duly elected representatives, can and do have input into where the money goes. That takes care of the "more informed & therefore effective" argument - he's either ignorant of or intentionally ignoring how our government actually works.
posted by soundguy99 at 8:50 AM on December 28, 2016 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I used to work on, and then directly next to, a large federally administered block-grant program. I worked for a city that is larger than most states both in terms of population and annual budget. My biggest concern with your friends "let the states handle it" attitude is that I have seen first-hand how this works: once the feds absolve themselves of the responsibility for the nuts and bolts of the policy work it just opens up a Pandora's box of issues for the states and localities who do have to figure out what compliant and effective programs look like. How do most of them do this? by spending a lot more than most people would like on outside consultants. my number one argument for why big government is the best government is that consolidating that research and administration budget to figure out what one way (or what series of ways) work best in a variety of situations is much much better than having 50+ separate entities all attempt to simultaneously and without coordination solve identical problems by themselves.
posted by Exceptional_Hubris at 9:07 AM on December 28, 2016 [7 favorites]

Best answer: states would be more informed about their own needs, thus using the money more effectively.

ROU_X is on the mark here. State government is mostly terrible: it's the perfect storm of high power and low accountability.

If you look at how states administer block grants when they're turned over by the federal government -- for instance, the implementation of TANF -- then you see common patterns of diverting those funds into schemes that aren't remotely evidence-based but do serve political constituencies. State governments are actually pretty good at hiding this, both legislatively (by limiting disclosure laws for things that are potentially embarrassing) and because media scrutiny of state governments is much lower than that of the federal government.

As someone remarked here in another thread, state legislative positions largely don't attract the best and brightest, especially in heavily gerrymandered states where you can get elected without any appeal to the voters beyond party identification. This means that state legislatures are easily manipulated by both local special interests and well-funded DC lobby shops that send [INSERT STATE NAME HERE] model legislation to state party HQs. It also makes it hard to reverse bad decisions.

I've found common cause with fiscal conservatives by talking about the qualities of "good government" before "big government" or "small government". If the US had demonstrably better and more accountable state-level government, then there'd be an argument for extending its powers, but it mostly doesn't. As vasi suggests, other federal nations seem to have learned from the US and manage the distribution of powers and accountability somewhat better, but there's not much concerted public desire in the US for state government to be better in concrete terms. That's a problem.
posted by holgate at 9:09 AM on December 28, 2016 [7 favorites]

When it comes to programs that protect natural resources and the environment, some federal control makes a lot of sense because each state is not its own separate ecosystem. Habitat destruction in southern states may affect birds that winter there but breed in northern states. Air pollution from one state can contribute to acid rain in another state. A single river may flow through multiple states. Water pollution or dams upstream affect the states downstream. Carbon emissions in any one state contribute to climate change that affects all of us.

You can also argue that we all benefit when wildlife habitat, wilderness and natural beauty are preserved for everyone to enjoy. It makes sense for everyone in the country to support the National Park Service, for instance, so we can maintain national parks as places we can all visit. Should it be up to Arizona to protect and maintain a park in the Grand Canyon for the benefit of everyone in the country? Or does it make more sense for the whole nation to contribute to the cost - and for there to be some assurance that Arizona can't decide to turn it into a theme park or sell it to private buyers?
posted by Redstart at 9:48 AM on December 28, 2016 [6 favorites]

Best answer: The conversion of federal-run ADFC to state-run TANF block grants has been devastating for the poor; in most states, it has meant the virtual elimination of cash payments.

I don't want to characterize state governments as uniformly tire fires, but the fact is that it is challenging to determine and implement effective policies even when the overall policy goals are sound and not wildly racist or ill-informed. Most state governments do not have the resources to attract and keep for the long term talented administrators, especially when there are any private sector options.

Ask your friend whether he thinks the Flint lead poisoning crisis, a creature of incompetent, racist, and indifferent state administration, is a model that should be followed.
posted by praemunire at 10:40 AM on December 28, 2016 [6 favorites]

Thought I'd mentioned this to my earlier comment, but I see not, and praemunire's comment reminded me:

If states could solve these problems, they would solve them. By the time a problem is at a level that the federal government finds it necessary to start a program to solve it, that problem (or its cause) has almost certainly crossed at least one state line or else has proven so massive a problem that it simply cannot be dealt with by the state.
posted by Etrigan at 11:22 AM on December 28, 2016 [5 favorites]

It seems to me that operating 1 large program rather than 50 separate programs should result in a significant increase in savings and efficiency. Just think about the amount of overlap and redundancy in the day-to-day overhead and administration of 50 individual state programs, all of which provide essentially the same services. 50 different head offices developing 50 different annual budgets, 50 different IT departments with 50 different (often non-compatible) computer systems, 50 different HR departments setting policies for 50 different dress codes, and on and on. Why not consolidate and share resources where we can? A state-based approach seems like it virtually guarantees more waste and inefficiency, not less!
posted by platinum at 12:15 PM on December 28, 2016 [6 favorites]

Why is it a bad idea to drop many of the federally funded programs down to state level?

Kinda for the same reasons we have government anything in the first place, which platinum sort of touches on above - there are many situations where allocating resources efficiently means drawing on the collective power of many individuals which diffuses the cost to each individual. For example, I pay a little state sales tax and a little city property tax (as part of my rent) and my employer pays a little city business income tax and in return I can call on trained firefighters and paramedics and cops to help me out if I'm in trouble, and I get people to plow and salt the streets when it snows, and clean water to drink when I turn a faucet, and on and on and on - at a lot lower cost to me than if I somehow had to arrange for all of these services as an individual making deals with other individuals. Heck, we tried "free-market-firefighters" (most fire companies before the Civil War were private organizations paid by insurance companies), and that didn't work out so good - buildings would burn down while rival fire companies were literally fighting each other in the streets. If $20 of my taxes gets combined with $20 from millions of other people to go towards helping the homeless, then homeless people get millions of dollars worth of assistance, which is far more efficient than me handing some homeless guy a Jackson. So why not take advantage of this collective power at a greater power level than just the state?

A lot of "fiscal conservatives" want to reduce government spending because it's "inefficient" and they especially get a bug up their ass about the federal government, but as Thorzdad points out, when pressed for evidence all they have are anecdotes and (highly suspicious) stories, like Reagan's "welfare queens" (which turned out to be based on one person who made a whopping $8000 and whoops, got caught and went to prison.) Which is to say it's all an ideologically-based assumption that "government program" = "inefficient" and that the bigger the government the more inefficient the program; an assumption not backed up by evidence.
posted by soundguy99 at 5:06 PM on December 28, 2016 [3 favorites]