Porter Goss: “our States, counties, cities, and towns have all experienced the frustration of unfunded Federal mandates in one form or…”

“our States, counties, cities, and towns have all experienced the frustration of unfunded Federal mandates in one form or another. As the first mayor of Sanibel, FL, and later as chairman of the Lee County Commission, I became much too familiar with the pressures that such one-size-fits-all mandates put on local budgets. It has become a very bad habit for the Federal Government to tell their State and local counterparts what to do, often spelling out how to do it, and usually doing so without consideration of the costs involved or the unique characteristics that make our localities differ from one another. I am gratified that today we are moving to reverse that trend and establish safeguards against such irresponsible Federal dictates in the future. The nuts and bolts of the rules changes in this bill have been pretty well explained--it will be out of order for the House to consider legislation that creates a new unfunded mandate, above a certain, national trigger cost level, on States and local governments.”