Question: can stimulus $$$ for states be conditional?

[Chemical Bill]

My repuke governor wants Obama's money for a tax cut for corporations and estate taxes. He wants to cut the sales tax too, which would be a good thing if it weren't for the loss of revenue.

Meanwhile he has cut capital gains taxes for 3 years, with two more years of cuts on tap. Oh, and he has a massive deficit, which he has used as an excuse to slash money for cities and towns in the state. So cities either have to raise property taxes or cut expenses, which they are trying to do by cutting union pay by 5-10%. I think the cities figure that they may lose that battle in court (contracts are law, right?), but it will take a while, so they can bleed the workers to make a short term gain.

So, my question is, can the federal money have strings attached, making it necessary to fully fund education and medicare, and to honor union contracts?

Bill

[tosh]

1. Good question. The State of Georgia wonders too.

[ThomWV]

2. The way to distribute it is through "block grants" which are for specific purposes

"block Grants are those which are allocated to all states by formula. Some some states get more than others in some cases but they are always targeted programs. Its fast (the "procurement" process for financial assistance are much less restrictive than for actual procurements) and can be aimed at exactly whatever the Congress wishes to achieve.

[HelenWheels]

3. Block grants difficult

to enforce. In the recent issue of "Mother Jones" they talk about a federal grant to the states called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). Georgia cut funds to these families by 90% since 2004. They lost not a cent of this money as they applied it to child protective services after the state was sued over the mistreatment of children in foster care. They needed to put the money aside to cover their asses. And this met federal qualifications.

[Chemical Bill]

4. I sent off emails to my congress critters....

I'm sure I'll get a "Thanks for writing" back, anyway.

Bill