It’s a commonly repeated myth that makes me cringe every time I hear it. Interestingly, I’ve never heard it from people who define themselves as liberals or moderates – only from those who insist they’re “strong” conservatives.
They’ll claim that local governments like school boards and town councils are so stinking greedy and foolish that they’ll accept federal money without noticing the “claws” or the “hooks” that force them do all sorts of objectionable things.
Put politely, that’s completely the southbound product of a northbound steer. There’s no menu of funding that the federal government dangles in front of those greedy idiots. No “We’ll take a million here and a million there and sure, we don’t mind tattooing Social Security numbers on the kids!” Doesn’t exist, doesn’t happen.
As a school board member, I’d hear from grumpy patrons who were upset that we’d accept federal money for things like school lunches and what they viewed as unnecessary special education services. School boards don’t take that money because they’re greedy or stupid – they take it because the law says they have to. School boards don’t offer special education services because they’re eager for some extra coin. They do it because federal law says that students with disabilities are entitled to services that improve their ability to succeed in the classroom and life. Which, by the way, is the correct and humane thing to do. (Any “extra” money they receive comes nowhere near the actual cost of providing those services. That story will wait for another day.)
I’ve said it before: local governments don’t get to choose which state and federal laws they’ll follow. Their officials are required to swear an oath in public that they will do things the way the state and the folks in Washington want them to. Period.
When you hear local candidates claim that they’ll reject all that evil federal funding, please don’t vote for them. Why? They haven’t taken the time to learn what their roles really entail and how a remarkably complex operation is structured. They probably haven’t even learned that Indiana governments use a complex accounting model that’s nothing like how the private sector books its debits and credits. If they manage to hoodwink enough voters and get into office, they’ll quickly discover they have no choice but to accept that funding.
And no, there aren’t any secret laws or hooks hiding in federal statutes and regulations. Your school district doesn’t have to let a transgender student use the bathroom and locker room for their gender because they’ve accepted federal money for student lunches. They have to allow them to do that because the federal courts have ruled those students have those specific rights.
If the district’s leaders refuse to cooperate, they’re going to find themselves on the losing end of an expensive lawsuit – one they’d lose before trial because the federal district overseeing Indiana already made up its mind and the Supreme Court let their ruling stand. (Plus, because the officials would be violating a decision the courts expect them to know, they would likely be required to pay all damages from their personal assets, not taxpayer funds. That’s in the law, too.)