The Trump administration is threatening to cut federal aid to cities that do not follow its approach to policing and civil unrest. The administration also wants to cut aid to public schools that do not follow its approach to reopening. Previously, the Obama administration tried to micromanage neighborhoods and housing through control over federal aid dollars.

As a general matter, there is no reason to think that federal politicians have superior knowledge to state-local leaders regarding how to run policing, schools, housing, and other local activities. Unfortunately, having power over an armada of 1,386 aid-to-state programs makes federal politicians think they are national central planners. Trump, Obama, and other presidents exude self-confidence, but they do not know how to run the affairs of 50 states and 19,000 cities and towns across our huge nation.

This study argues that Congress should repeal all federal aid-to-state programs for many reasons, including that aid comes with costly strings attached that destroy local democracy. Richard Epstein and Mario Loyola noted about aid programs: “When Americans vote in state and local elections, they think they are voting on state and local policies. But often they are just deciding which local officials get to implement the dictates of distant and insulated federal bureaucrats, whom even Congress can’t control.”

I came across a table (p. 82) in New Jersey’s budget that lists the $15 billion the state received in 2020 from each of almost 400 federal aid programs. The data reproduced below illustrates the vast reach of the federal government’s tentacles.

One of the line items includes $10,000 for circus training in Camden. Is there anything that the federal government doesn’t subsidize?

Note: some of the line items may be aggregations of multiple programs, and some small number are contracts, not grants.