Do Federal Social Programs Work?

When the US Constitution was drawn up, it said that the Federal Government’s job was to defend the nation, coin money, oversee Federal lands, and provide courts of appeal. Local police, health, education, local courts, and sewage would be the states’ problem. Most states, in turn, declare those things to be the local government’s problem. It wasn’t until the 1900’s that the idea of education, public health, garbage collection, and public assistance in some form or another came to be seen as entitlements. But when it came to government funded services, the question was, is, and always will be “who’s going to pay for it?”

Some progressives, like John Dewey, argued that freedom is useless when you live in poverty. Court cases, like USA versus Butler, argued that the Federal government can spend all the money it wants. But hang on, what will the voters say? I can imagine the conservatives in the Deep South saying “tax, and I vote you out” while the liberals in the “Blue States” will say “make it an entitlement and tax the rich to pay for it.” It was FDR that started many of the Federally funded enterprises, like the Hoover Dam and the TVA, but at the same time, a recent book called “Rainwater Harvesting” shows that flood control and other environmental improvements can be done with no money, just a lot of manpower. Groups like Common Ground, which creates farms in empty lots, run more on labor than money.

The book doesn’t favor one side over the other. It makes good use of charts for data, education, health, etc. Unfortunately, it doesn’t use case studies (like “The Poor Among Us”) and doesn’t discuss blue-collar apprenticeships, high school internships, or requiring municipal projects to hire local residents. Then again, a lot of these programs exist only on the local level. Perhaps it’s easier for a city or town to manage local programs than for the Federal government to manage something across 2000 miles?