Close Menu
Badger InstituteBadger Institute
  • Home
  • Issues
    • Taxes
    • Education
    • Housing
    • Crime & Justice
    • Spending & Accountability
    • Economy & Infrastructure
    • Federalism
    • Licensing
    • Healthcare
    • Childcare
    • Marijuana
    • Energy
    • Civil Society
  • Mandate for Madison
  • Research
  • News & Analysis
    • News & Analysis
    • Viewpoints (Op-ed)
    • By the Numbers
    • Fact Sheets
    • Magazines
      • Diggings
      • Wisconsin Interest
  • Media
    • Badger in the News
    • Press Releases
    • Podcast
    • Video
    • Audio
    • Testimony
  • Events
  • About
    • Our Mission
    • Board of Directors
    • Team
    • Visiting Fellows
    • Careers
  • Top Picks
  • Donate
  • Contact Us

Subscribe to Top Picks

Get the latest news and research from Badger Institute

Name(Required)
You can modify your subscription preferences at any time by using the link found at the bottom of every email.

What's New

Without legislative change, dwindling ranks of young accountants will flee Wisconsin

June 12, 2025

Courage on Medicaid in the past helps Wisconsin now

June 12, 2025

At center of America’s essential debate, Johnson says resist spending frenzy

June 5, 2025
Facebook X (Twitter) YouTube LinkedIn Instagram
TRENDING:
  • Without legislative change, dwindling ranks of young accountants will flee Wisconsin
  • Courage on Medicaid in the past helps Wisconsin now
  • At center of America’s essential debate, Johnson says resist spending frenzy
  • Real answer to siting nuclear plants: ‘Yes, here.’
  • Taxpayers need more simplicity and transparency — not misleading arguments meant to stoke fears of successful choice schools
  • Plans, zoning and annexation form front lines for Wisconsin cities looking to build more housing
  • We increasingly live in a world of unsolved crime
  • State should cut funding to public media
  • Donate
  • Events
  • Contact
Facebook X (Twitter) YouTube LinkedIn Instagram
Badger InstituteBadger Institute
SUPPORT OUR MISSION
  • Issues
    • Taxes
    • Education
    • Housing
    • Crime & Justice
    • Spending & Accountability
    • Economy & Infrastructure
    • Federalism
    • Licensing
    • Healthcare
    • Childcare
    • Marijuana
    • Energy
    • Civil Society
  • Mandate for Madison
  • Research
  • News & Analysis
    • News & Analysis
    • Viewpoints (Op-ed)
    • By the Numbers
    • Fact Sheets
    • Magazines
      • Diggings
      • Wisconsin Interest
  • Media
    • Press Releases
    • Badger in the News
    • Podcast
    • Video
    • Audio
    • Testimony
  • About
    • Our Mission
    • Board of Directors
    • Team
    • Visiting Fellows
    • Careers
Facebook X (Twitter) YouTube LinkedIn
DONATE
Badger InstituteBadger Institute
Home » Media » News & Analysis » Walker still has chance to embrace federalism
Economy and Infastructure

Walker still has chance to embrace federalism

By Mike NicholsOctober 1, 2015
Share
Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest

The proliferation of grants-in-aid has driven up federal and state spending and taxes, hampered the prosperity and independence of Wisconsin’s citizens and ultimately moved America dangerously closer to centrally controlled governance.

The high point of Scott Walker’s quixotic, now-foolish-looking quest for the presidency, the one time when there was actually a hint of an argument that the son of a Midwestern preacher without a college degree could revive America in a way that no one else could, came before he was formally a candidate at all.

It came in January, when he nailed a high-profile speech in Iowa and launched a 527 committee, Our American Revival. Much of Walker’s allure came from his union-fighting credentials. But the Our American Revival website succinctly stated his best, somewhat ironic argument for seeking federal power: his quest to diminish that very same power and fight federal overreach:

Our American Revival believes that the government closest to the people is the most responsive and accountable to the people. We share the vision of our founders — that the powers of the federal government should be limited to those specified in the Constitution, and that federal overreach infringes on our American freedoms and values. We will work with citizens and leaders across the country to promote policies that restore power to the states and their people.

Long before the gaffes and guffaws, the vacillation on birthright citizenship, the seeming comparison of protesters in Madison to terrorists in the Middle East, the suggestion that building a wall to keep out Canucks was a legitimate issue to consider, this was the crux of the one campaign for the White House — but really against the White House — that Scott Walker could plausibly launch.

Walker was never going to be the anti-politician whom many Republicans yearn for. He was never going to be Ben Carson or Carly Fiorina or, God help him, Donald Trump. He is a politician’s politician. It’s what he knows. But he could have plausibly donned the mantle of Washington outsider in a way even the other governors in the race could not by describing how government really is most responsive and accountable when it is local. He isn’t just a governor; he was a state legislator for years and a county executive who saw how federal grants and programs and mandates, with little oversight, grow and grow and grow.

Federal grants to state and local governments grew from just $7 billion in 1960 prior to Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society to an estimated $628 billion today — about one-sixth of the federal budget. Wisconsin alone now receives nearly one-third of all state budget revenues from Washington, D.C., and as a result has forfeited control over vast areas of policy and spending.

Between 1960 and 1970 alone, types of grants-in-aid quadrupled from 132 to 530 and — despite temporary reversal of the trend during the Ronald Reagan years — have more than doubled again to over 1,100 since then.

The proliferation has driven up federal and state spending and taxes, hampered the prosperity and independence of Wisconsin’s citizens and ultimately moved America dangerously closer to centrally controlled governance.

I don’t know why Walker seemed to jettison the issue. Perhaps it simply got drowned out by a media that was disinterested. Perhaps the cloud of Trump’s hairspray obscured his vision. Perhaps it was a political calculation, a recognition that even conservatives often like lots of big federal programs and control.

I walked through the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum in Grand Rapids, Mich., on Wednesday, a boosterish, hometown shrine in which you have to search hard for a reason to question the judgment of the 38th president of the United States (well, aside from that pardon thing).

But I succeeded.

Reagan, the former California governor, long believed in federalism, in returning power to the states and local communities. He campaigned on it in 1976, when he unsuccessfully challenged Ford for the Republican nomination. It backfired in New Hampshire when Ford, a creature of Washington, claimed it was an effort to move federal programs onto state budgets and used the issue in the famously tax-wary state to help win the primary and eventually the nomination.

Some conservatives in New Hampshire still want to talk about the issue. In fact, some of the presidential candidates are taking part in a forum on practical federalism in New Hampshire this weekend. But the reality is that for all the dislike of federal overreach and Washington insiders, even conservative voters often like “free” federal money.

Perhaps Walker realized that the federalism issue can be a tough one to sell without telling lots of specific stories about how detrimental federal overreach can really be. Perhaps — now that he’s back in Wisconsin and maybe looking for something to do — he can use his state bully pulpit to expound on the issue the way he seemed to want to way back in January.

Mike Nichols is president of the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute.

News
Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Telegram Email
Mike Nichols

Related Posts

Courage on Medicaid in the past helps Wisconsin now

June 12, 2025

At center of America’s essential debate, Johnson says resist spending frenzy

June 5, 2025

Real answer to siting nuclear plants: ‘Yes, here.’

June 5, 2025
Top Posts

‘Predictable’ Hobart a rarity for developers in Wisconsin

March 20, 20251,908

Policy Brief: Could Wisconsin eliminate its income tax?

September 12, 20241,832

Manitowoc and builder bend to make houses attainable

April 24, 20251,428

Subject by subject, Wisconsin districts face higher rates of teacher turnover

May 1, 20251,043

Top Picks

Subscribe for the latest news and research from Badger Institute

Name(Required)
You can modify your subscription preferences at any time by using the link found at the bottom of every email.

Connect with Badger Institute
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn
About Us
About Us

The Badger Institute is a nonpartisan, not-for-profit institute established in 1987 working to engage and energize Wisconsinites and others in discussions and timely action on key public policy issues critical to the state’s future, growth and prosperity.

Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram YouTube LinkedIn

Sign up for Top Picks

Get the latest news and research from Badger Institute

Name(Required)
You can modify your subscription preferences at any time by using the link found at the bottom of every email.

What’s New

Without legislative change, dwindling ranks of young accountants will flee Wisconsin

June 12, 2025

Courage on Medicaid in the past helps Wisconsin now

June 12, 2025

At center of America’s essential debate, Johnson says resist spending frenzy

June 5, 2025

Real answer to siting nuclear plants: ‘Yes, here.’

June 5, 2025
© 2025 Badger Institute | Privacy Policy | Disclaimer | Sitemap

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.

Notifications