I completely agree about the need for balanced budgets but handing the problem off to the States did not save money or solve the problem. It may have helped balance the books for the Feds but in the end it is really more of a shell game than a solution. We now deal with those people in the criminal justice system. Those folks are not going away nor are the costs associated with them. They are members of society and they need to be looked after because they are not able to do so themselves. Closing the mental health institutions was a terrible idea no matter the agenda driving the decision.
Well, we are in agreement they need to be looked after.
As far as who pays for it, that's a bit of a shell game because ultimately the money only comes from one place. The taxpayer.
Now I don't know the intricacies of the division of responsibilities between the Feds and state governments but I do know the Feds have a habit of overstepping their bounds. It happens up here all the time. They do it with the lure of money.
Was this a case where the Feds had overstepped their bounds, taking on and paying for something that isn't in their mandate and Reagan reeled it back or was this a case where the Feds with clear responsibility for the issue, just bailed?
My point being that balancing the books....which all governments at every level should be doing, has to start somewhere. And to do so, difficult choices must be made, becasue there are a whole lot of idiots in our past who refused to do so, both Republican and Democrat.....Liberal and Conservative. No party in either country has a lock on behaving well, fiscally.
