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CGar, I totally agree about Mariska’s hair. I like her hair now. She looks much better.
haha cgar – seriously!
yeah – march has that hot chick deep voice. and agreed, olivia looks much better now that her hair is longer.
i’m kinda svu’ed out – been trying to get into the reruns of criminal intent to no avail.
Actually benson, if it is a block grant, it is largely fixed by budget and formula at the fed level. Fed administration would be involved in allocation of a fixed fund to the states by application of a formula, and would also be involved in auditing the states, but would not be involved in the approval and transfer of benefits to individuals, and that would be done at the State level (and in some cases farmed out by the state to local government). So a bureaucratic consolidation like you are suggesting would either involve major reorganizations of several agencies within each of the 50 states, or a full-fledged fed takeover of administration. Also, different states do different splits between State/local shares and there are aspects of some programs that give states flexibility on eligibility. I am aware that fed auditing of State claiming of fed reimbursement on various public assistance programs has gotten quite aggressive of late, and mroe agggressive auditing is anticipated.
“Why is there even a Department of Education when all of it is taken care of locally?????”
This is something I’ve always wondered. I would like for this department to be dismantled and rolled into another department. I’m not sure which one, though. The most important thing the department does are financial aid for college students and funding for college/work prep programs for poor youth.
“longest day ever”
DH, if I didn’t know better I’d swear we worked at the same firm, since we consistently have the “same” day. I had to work yesterday, so I’m particularly beat today too.
Further to our convo the other night, I love Stephanie March’s voice, too; Mariska did not look her best when her hair was all “punk” a few years back; and a few of my fave episodes were on yesterday.
“And this funtion (block grants) do not involve bureauacracies? The money just is magically transferred to the states, sans a staff. No follow-up compliance costs. No review of reports from the states.”
What you’re suggesting is that the federal government spend millions restructing itself to save little. All the government would do is tranfer the FEW workers dealing with these matters to one agency and that’s not a savings. These programs are under the agencies best equipped to deal with them. Why would HUD decide the guidelines for nutrition and what can be purchased under SNAP when the USDA has nutritionist, doctors, and scientist specializing in food science/resource and why would the USDA decide what constitutes adequate housing? The same line of questioning can be applied to dealing with reporting and compliance. Primarily because different agencies have very different reporting requirement and streamlining them all makes no sense from a practical standpoint because the actual program guidelines are very different.
Once again, running these programs cost the federal government very little when looking at the big picture. They got out of the business of direct administration a long time ago because it’s not cost effective.
Anyway, I’m done with this. I spent majority of my education studying government policy, structure, and funding and it’s not a topic I enjoy.
I like Gus’s too & don’t like half-sours. Schmolke used to be best but they went out of business because the kids wouldn’t take it over.
longest day ever.
Your State Education Dollars At Work:
The Daily News had a story this week about
a school custodian making like 176,000 per year.
Plus he has 10 multifamily houses which he
has workers renovate and maintain,
ALL at taxpayer’s expense.
Seems he had the workers on the clock
with the Board of Education.
Nice work if you can get it,
he was paying them overtime pay scale!
Nice to be generous when the sucker taxpayers
continue to vote in people who will continue
to push for increased spending while the
system if full of this kind of fraud and abuse.