Imagine how different United States Senate debates over federal fiscal aid to state and local government would look if several Republican Senators were also state governors. Instead of Governor Christie turning down federal funding for a commuter rail tunnel because he was worried about potential overruns’ impact on the state budget, Senator/Governor Christie might have struck a deal for the feds to finance the project more generously. And of course there’s no filibustering in the New Jersey State Senate. State government is also just different from federal government. Every Democratic governor who’s presided over a recession ever has ended up cutting state spending, whereas every Republican President since Herbert Hoover has ended up increasing federal spending.
Read the whole article here.
Comment: I think he's saying if we had Governors as sitting US Senators, they'd take the money! Sure with these progressives it's always about the transference of money from the taxpayers pocket to special interest. (Federal funding for the commuter rail tunnel example would go to countless special interests ranging from the construction companies all the way to an unelected special government that would send its operation budget straight into the red like a transit or port authority.)
But the research doesn't support Yglesias' theory. What it does say is that when state officials become involved with the waste coming from the Federal Government they want to reduce it and remove the federal influence from the state. It's only after they've spent some time in Washington and the special interest buys them off that they begin creating legislation to transfer our tax dollars to the hands of special interest.
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