Local Empowerment, Flexibility Legislation Will Help Distressed Urban Neighborhoods; Federal Regulatory Red Tape, Waste Would Be Cut

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The federal government would be a better partner with local government and business if it didn't so often bully them with rigid rules and red tape. This is particularly true with federal categorical grant programs. The strings attached to many of these programs needlessly consume money and restrict local flexibility.

According to the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations (ACIR), there were 618 federal categorical grant programs available to state and local governments at the beginning of 1995, including 110 in education, 100 in health care, 82 in social services, and about 30 in community and regional development.

The National Academy of Public Administration, in testimony last August before the House subcommittee I chair, said that the federal categorical grants system "has grown like topsy" and "so too has the list of requirements and restrictions imposed through both statute and regulation. It (the system) also imposes …