When Congress returns to work Tuesday, the lawmakers will face a heavy load of unfinished business in a session likely to be complicated and heated.
Besides acting on the politically charged nominations of Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court and Robert Gates to head the CIA, Congress must also deal with 10 major spending bills, a controversial reform of the federal banking system, and a continued bailout of the savings and loan industry.On top of all that, the session can expected to be complicated by partisan disputes over how best to help the Soviet Union make a tumultuous transition from communism to freedom and capitalism.
But few things the lawmakers do are more important than the comparatively little-noticed issue of how to get Washington to stop passing the buck to state and local governments.
We're referring to Congress' habit of saddling other levels of government with all sorts of good works but not providing federal funds to do the job.
This practice, called congressional mandates, has state officials furious. But in some cases state officials are doing the same thing, forcing city and county governments to provide new programs and then telling them to use local tax revenues to foot the bill.
The most expensive congressional mandates involve medical care for the poor and elderly. But the practice has spread to other areas. Seven bills now before Congress would cost states more than $1.6 billion for welfare, environmental education, voter registration, the homeless and health care.
As a result, states are being forced to stint on education and other of their own needs as they see them in order to meet federal priorities.
Though the congressional mandates result from the difficulty Washington is having in trying to eliminate the big and persistent U.S. deficit, the federal red ink is no excuse for this practice. In effect, Washington is passing the buck. That's not the way government is supposed to work. Instead, our elected representatives are supposed to find new money when they make new commitments.
Unfunded mandates are just a polite term for fiscal irresponsibility. Two years ago this nation's governors asked Congress and the White House for a moratorium on mandates. What's really needed is not just a temporary pause but the outright elimination of this unwise practice.