WHEREAS:

Federal grants-in-aid to state and local governments have historically been an important source of support for state and local government services. Federal aid to state and local governments composed well over 20 percent of total state and local spending through the decade of the 1970's; and

WHEREAS:

Federal grant-in-aid programs to state and local governments are crucial for insuring that all Americans have access to adequate public services regardless of where they live. Most federal aid programs are targeted on the basis of need, and help equalize the capacity of different jurisdictions to provide vital public services; and

WHEREAS:

The Reagan Administration has slashed federal aid programs to state and local governments to the bone. With the proposed cuts in the Reagan Administration's FY 1985 budget proposal, total losses during Reagan's term in office in federal aid to state and local governments, from pre-Reagan policy levels, would amount to $59 billion. In addition, losses in direct federal payments to the needy and the elderly would total $29 billion, bringing the total losses in all social spending programs to $88 billion; and

WHEREAS:

Deep cuts were made across all areas of federal assistance — education, job training, health, nutrition, human services and public works — in a reckless and insensitive manner. The Reagan Administration simply began dismantling domestic social programs with no consideration of its effects on recipients or communities. Lower and middle income Americans, in particular, have suffered disproportionately from the reduction in vital human services, while the economy has been hampered by the deterioration in our physical infrastructure and the decline in investment in our human capital; and

WHEREAS:

The Reagan cuts in federal assistance to state and local governments came during the worst fiscal crisis at the state and local level since the Great Depression. These federal aid cuts only further damaged the ailing condition of state and local government services, and placed even greater demands on their tight budgets; and

WHEREAS:

The Reagan Administration's New Federalism proposal, which would have transferred the responsibilities of many federal social programs to state and local governments without adequate resources to meet the needs of these programs, was resoundly rejected by state and local officials. Nevertheless, the Reagan Administration's deep and reckless cuts in federal aid to state and local governments accomplished de facto many of the objectives of the discredited New Federalism proposal.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED:

That AFSCME condemns the Reagan Administration's cuts in federal assistance to state and local governments as inhumane and counter-productive; and

BE IT RESOLVED:

That AFSCME calls on Congress and the Reagan Administration to restore the losses in federal assistance programs to state and local governments so that these programs can ameliorate the real needs they are presently failing to meet.

SUBMITTED BY:

Clara B. Webb, President
Mary E. Home, Secretary-Treasurer
Council 20
Washington, D.C.