On The Issues
Separating Society and State
Pennsylvania shound not accept federal dollars!
Accepting federal dollars is like accepting free drugs from a pusher.
Soon you’re addicted — and the pusher threatens to cut you off if you don’t dance to the pusher’s tune.
Accepting federal dollars is bad economic deal!
Most of any dollar sent to the federal government is eaten up in the bureaucracy.
You’re lucky if you get a dime back on every dollar sent to Washington.
In Depth
Should Pennsylvania accept federal funds? Why not? Isn’t it “free money” for the state? Well, the answer is yes and no, depending on what problem you’re solving.
On the “Yes” side, accepting federal dollars for any program is certainly “free” money. Unfortunately, it’s akin to accepting free drugs from a pusher. The next thing you know you’re addicted, and the pusher begins pulling strings to make you dance to the pusher’s tune. Are you accepting federal transportation dollars? Then lower your blood alcohol limits or we cut you off. Accepting Medicare dollars? Then force doctors to charge using the Medicare fee structure, or we cut you off. Taking federal education dollars? Then stand back, because here comes Title IX! It doesn’t matter what the topic may be. Accept the benefit and bear the burden. The only solution is to refuse the federal dollars in the first place and avoid addiction, so I also pledge to veto accepting any new federal dollars and to reduce reliance on existing ones.
On the “No” side, accepting “free” federal dollars is unquestionably a bad economic deal. That’s because every dollar you send to Washington gets laundered through the bureaucracy. Of course that sucks up so much money that only a portion of that dollar reaches the state. But then the state has ITS own bureaucracy to launder those tax dollars even further. As does your local bureaucracy. In the end, studies show that you’re lucky to get a dime on the dollar for every dollar sent to Washington. And even then, should that remnant dime somehow find its way to its intended destination, too often it gets funneled to political cronies. On the other hand, if you kept that dollar local and not cut in the bureaucrats, you could educate ten times as many kids, shelter ten times as many homeless, pave ten times as many streets, and innumerable other tenfold savings.
Bottom line: No matter the reason for accepting federal dollars, it’s a bad move. And the best way to break free of the mooching bureaucratic pusher—and apparently the ONLY way—is to vote Libertarian.