Latest / The Fiscal Policy Podcast with Fexingo: Government Budgets, Stimulus, and Public Spending
How Unfunded Mandates Shift Costs from Washington to Your Town
Episode 91 of The Fiscal Policy Podcast unpacks the hidden fiscal burden of unfunded mandates — federal laws that require state and local governments to spend their own money. Lucas and Luna trace the $1.5 trillion annual price tag through specific examples: the Real ID Act's $4 billion compliance cost, Clean Water Act upgrades that drained small-town budgets, and No Child Left Behind's testing requirements that stretched rural schools. They discuss why mandates persist (Congress gets credit, locals pay), the rise of state-level mandate-monitoring offices like Colorado's, and…
The skinny
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