Just say no to government grants

OPINION:

Most of the stories we read about outrageous government waste stem from a category of government funding called grants. From the $3 million grant to study how hamsters fight each other to the $3.7 million in grants given to the Wuhan virology lab that likely unleashed COVID-19 on the world, they are the essence of wasteful spending.

Government grants fall into two major categories: gifts of public money for every cause under the sun and grants for local projects of every variety.

They are all for “good causes.” They go to universities, companies, nongovernmental organizations, civic groups, charities, local governments, state governments and do-gooders, all promising some public benefit.

Unfortunately, by their nature, they are plagued with lax oversight, political favoritism, little follow-up and questionable benefits. Much of the grant money doled out each year disappears into the salaries of groups and agencies that will write glowing reports of their work and apply for more grants the next year in an ever-expanding litany of waste. There is never a shortage of highly paid grant application writers eager to make the case.

Dan Aykroyd’s character in “Ghostbusters” captures the general vibe: “Personally, I liked the university. They gave us money and facilities; we didn’t have to produce anything! You’ve never been out of college! You don’t know what it’s like out there! I’ve worked in the private sector. They expect results!”

Suppose the federal government needs a particular good or service that it can’t produce itself. In that case, it should send out a request for proposal specifying what it needs and then award a contract to the lowest responsible bidder to provide it. Then, the contractor should be held accountable for delivering that good or service.

Another major class of grant recipients are local and state governments. Who can begrudge grants for law enforcement, wastewater treatment, transportation, homeless shelters and schools? Yet all of these grant programs raise a fundamental question: If a project exclusively benefits a community, shouldn’t it be paid for exclusively by that community? Why should the taxpayers in Pocatello be forced to pay for sidewalks in Poughkeepsie? Robbing St. Petersburg to pay St. Paul turns the federal treasury into a grab bag for local pork projects that destroy the entire concept of federalism: Local decisions and local money should be made and spent locally.

By definition, local grants are lower-priority projects that don’t make the cut when local governments measure their local needs against their local resources. They make economic sense only if somebody else can be stuck with the tab — and grants are the means to do so. Money flows from politically powerless communities to politically powerful ones, often for frivolous projects that don’t merit a place in local budgets.

Because these federal grants come with many strings attached, they are often inefficiently applied — but who cares, since it’s free money?

A simple test should be applied to this class of grants: If the project exclusively benefits a community, that community should pay for it. With that burden comes the freedom to spend those dollars exactly as they are most needed. Federal resources should be reserved for projects that benefit the entire country. That’s the difference between the federal interstate highway system and a local street.

This is no small matter. Between 2016 and 2020, federal grant spending ballooned from $675 billion to $972 billion, exclusive of Medicaid grants to states. That’s nearly half the annual federal deficit.

Weeding them out or reforming them is not easy, because a thriving political ecosystem of wealth and favor supports them. In last year’s spending spree, both parties indulged themselves with 8,222 congressional earmarks — a particular subset of grant spending where individual members of Congress handpick their recipients.

So, here’s a modest proposal for the advisory Department of Government Efficiency: Stop the cash bonanza to every self-described deserving cause and influential community with a good grant writer. Budget writers and appropriators should look with extreme skepticism at every grant that awards money without results or robs taxpayers in one community to pay for projects in another. It is time we protected and reserved the federal treasury for the nation’s general welfare as the Constitution envisioned.

• Tom McClintock represents California’s 5th Congressional District.