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Summary of our proposed amendment  Unfunded
mandates are regulations, or in some cases conditions for receiving
grants, that impose costs on state and local governments for which they
are not reimbursed by the federal government.
Some
examples of unfunded mandates are the Clean Air Act, and the Clean
Water Act that require programs to be sponsored by the governments of
the states, without providing any funds for those programs. The
provisions in the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act are
also examples of unfunded mandates, because they require nearly all
American emergency rooms to accept and stabilize any patient regardless
of the patient's ability to pay, but do not provide adequate
reimbursement for indigent patients. Unfunded
mandates are a problem because Congress can use them as a way to
increase its power without paying the price for it. Congress can exert
control, while passing on the costs to others. An unfunded mandates
amendment is a simple matter of fairness. Congress should not be able
to take control by forcing the states to do things, unless it is
willing to pay the costs it is forcing the states to incur. Our
proposed amendment prohibits Congress from passing any law that would
require states to spend money, unless Congress allocates the full
amount necessary to offset the states' expenditures. It also states
that Congress cannot give money to the states if Congress imposes
conditions on the money that require the states to spend their own
money too. Text of our proposed amendment An amendment prohibiting unfunded mandates is supported by 69 percent of Americans. Our proposed text for an unfunded mandate amendment is:
Section 1.
Congress shall make no law that would require any of the States, or
political subdivisions thereof, to make any expenditure or incur any
debt, without providing the funds necessary to fully offset the
State's or political subdivision's expenditures or debt.
Section
2. Congress shall not allocate any funds to any of the States,
or political subdivisions thereof, if such allocation, whether
directly or indirectly, requires the state or political subdivision
to make any expenditure or incur any debt beyond the amount allocated
by Congress.
Section 3.
No state, nor political subdivision of any state, nor any individual,
shall be bound by any law enacted by Congress that violates Section 1
of this Article. Any Citizen of the United States shall have standing
to challenge in federal court any law enacted, or any action taken by
Congress or the President, in violation of this article. If Congress
allocates funds in violation of Section 2, the States, or political
subdivisions thereof, to which the funds were allocated shall be free
to spend such funds allocated to it by Congress without regard to any
conditions set for the expenditure of such funds, as if those funds
had been raised by the State or political subdivision itself for its
general expenses.
The above is, of course, merely our proposal. The Article V convention would have the final authority on the exact text of the amendment it proposes.
This text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0. This page uses material from the Wikipedia article "Unfunded Mandates."
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