David Price: “to anyone who finds the Kasich budget to have a superficial political appeal, all I would say is just read the fine…”

“to anyone who finds the Kasich budget to have a superficial political appeal, all I would say is just read the fine print. I want to concentrate on one aspect of that here today. This is something we hear a lot of talk about in this Chamber, unfunded mandates. Members protest unfunded mandates all the time, and rightly so, the way we here in Washington sometimes make decisions without any regard for their impact on State and local government. Too often, we just pass the cost along. Well, to anyone who is concerned about unfunded mandates, I would say watch out for this Kasich budget. Not only does it have unfunded mandates, it has defunded mandates. We can do this in two ways: We can lay new responsibilities on the States and localities and then let them eat the cost, or we might remove the supports they now have. Unfortunately, this Kasich budget does both. Let me give a few examples. In the natural resources and environment area, the Kasich substitute takes away $1.9 billion in Federal financial assistance to localities for construction of waste water treatment and drinking water facilities. That is what these communities have to do to comply with the Clean Water Act and Drinking Water Act. The Kasich budget would simply jerk the props out from under them.”