The Government Should Make Use Of Revenue

Sharing Essay, Research Paper

The Government Should Make Use of Revenue Sharing

Federal grants have become more common over the last 60 years, due to the

expansion and retraction of the size of the federal government. The federal

government began expanding in the 1930s to deal with the Depression. It used

federal agencies to directly deal with problems. As time went on, the tasks

were turned over to the states, but the federal government still remained

involved through the use of federal grants to states and localities. In the

1970s, Nixon’s New Federalism put a heavy emphasis on federal grants. Revenue

sharing gave federal dollars to localities and states that had never received

very much or any federal money before. This increased local interest in

receiving federal money in many localities.

In order to deal with the federal bureaucracy and receive federal money,

localities and states have to develop efficient and effective bureaucracies of

their own. These state and local bureaucracies must understand the federal

rules and requirements for receiving federal aid. Some states routinely

receive a greater amount of federal money than other states with similar

populations due to the differences in state bureaucracies. The state which has

an effective grant-writing bureaucracy and maintains relations with federal

bureaucrats and leaders is often able to get more money.

Federal bureaucracies are often very regionalized. They are staffed by people

from a certain region, and they primarily deal with people from that region.

They give more federal assistance to these regions too. The overall trend in

federal spending in a state may be different from a particular agency’s

pattern of spending. Some states may get very little overall federal funding,

but may get much more than the average amount of money from a certain federal

agency’s grants.

American state-level politics can be divided up into 3 categories: traditional,

moralistic, and individualistic. Traditional areas are heavily elitist, and

social elites are the primary leaders of society. They have less reliance on

government programs, government spending, and government in general. They are

not as democratic as in other areas of the country. Moralistic cultures put a

heavy focus on government taking an active role in society. There is more

emphasis on democratic methods in government, government funding, government

programs, and the provision of services. The individualist culture sees

government as only being important when it can help the individual succeed. It

should never hamper the individual from attaining personnel success. The South

is considered more traditionalist. The midatlantic states and other areas

which have descendants of the original settlers of the midatlantic states are

considered individualistic. The northern states are moralistic. All of these

political cultures influences the state governments in their areas. The states

with the moralistic culture are more likely to have a responsive bureaucracy

that knows how to get federal grant money and services, while the others are

less likely to have this ability. Although general trends can be established,

they are not without irregularities. Some states do not follow the trends of

their region, and may contradict it. For example, Louisiana provides a

relatively high amount of unemployment benefits to its residents, while other

southern states do not. A state may have a very responsive agriculture

department which can obtain federal dollars and assist farmers, but have few

other agencies in state government which do the same in other fields.

The national government should make more use of revenue sharing than it does now.

Revenue sharing will prevent many of the disparities found in federal funding.

States with small populations now receive more federal money per capita than

states with large populations, possibly due to their having higher

representation in the Senate. The elimination of this disparity in funding is

needed in order to ensure adequate funding of all states.