Question

Should Federal Aid be equal for all states (based on population)? And should the federal government be in control of how their money is spent?

Answer 1

The United States of America was originally just that United independently governed states (similar to the European Union). There are two main ways to determine how much influence each state has on every other state (and in effect the government as a whole), every state has equal say and every state has a say based on their population. Both have their merits. Every state having equal say means that the cultural and economical differences between states have representation and no culture is belittle simply because it’s an outlier compared to other cultures which have a higher population. Say based on population has its merits because the effect of the laws being dictated will reflect the general consensus of its citizens.

          Our founding fathers knew this and the regularly debated it when determining how our federal government should be run. The came up with a simple solution to the dilemma; two houses, one with equal say (Senate) and one with a popular vote (House of Representatives). If the Senate had seats based off of population, then less populated states wouldn’t have their needs met. As it so happens, these state are high producers in things we need (agriculture, shale oil, natural resources, natural parks). What would happen then is that these states would fall to popular vote (lets say renewable energy because everyone loves renewable energy, I do too BTW) which could decimate if not destroy the states economy (especially if shale oil is keeping it functioning as in North Dakota). This would result in richer cities and poorer rural conditions (essentially pushing problems out of sight).

        What the Senate does in maintaining its two seat per state policy is that it stands up for the little guys that need representation in ways that the majority population don’t realize. Keeping with this system we can increase the number of Senate seats but that increase will need to be equal across all states. Taking the flip side of this reasoning is why the House of Representatives should NOT have the same number of seats for each state. Neither reasoning is wrong, they both have their merits and issues, and the US government uses both to compensate for the problems that each one would have on its own.

Regulation on expenditure by federal government -

Appropriations: committees in Congress “appropriate” (take) money from the US Treasury and instruct various agencies of the Executive Branch on where and how to spend it. There are thirteen annual approps bills: one to fund the departments of Commerce, Justice and State; another for Education or NASA or EPA, etc. These bills make their way through a flurry of committees and amendments until all of Congress passes bills that keep the government funded for one more year.

Executive Branch action: now that Congress has essentially taken money from the Treasury and transferred it to each agency’s bank account, the agencies decide how to spend it. Often, Congress will dictate how the money can be spent. Congress might say that no federal education money can be spent to provide HPV shots or condoms for kids in public schools, for example, or that none of the EPA’s money can be used to fight cigarette smoking. So this is where the boring topic of accounting become intensely political. In any event, subject to any strings attached by Congress, the Executive agencies now can spend their money as they see fit. They allocate it internally to anything from hiring to capital improvements to leasing a new office to printing educational materials to anything else an office needs to run and do its work.