provided by Research Papers in Economics
LOCAL CONTROL AND IMPROVEMENT OF
COMMUNITY SERVICE
Charles M. Smith, Staff Director
Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Relations
Senate Comtnittee on Government Operations
In its landmark report, "Goals for Americans,” the President’s
Commission on National Goals stated that "shared power is the
key to the miracle of effective democratic government of a vast and
diverse country.”
We, as a people, tend to shy away from the idea of control, even
local control in any absolute and doctrinaire sense. The idea of shared
responsibility, of shared powers, of cooperation to get the job done
is much more acceptable to us.
“Goals for Americans” stated further:
National. State, and local governments collaborate and share
power in many domestic concerns. To ensure dispersion of power within
the system without obstructing solution of pressing national problems,
we must pursue the following primary objectives: enlarge local discre-
tion, as for example in the handling of matching Federal grants; in-
crease the financial resources of State and local governments; represent
urban populations more equitably in those State legislatures where
they are now under-represented; further develop limited metropolitan
authorities or governments.
The Commission was calling for a strengthened federal system
for what has become known in more recent years as “creative fed-
eralism.” Senator Edmund S. Muskie, Chairman of the Senate Sub-
committee on Intergovernmental Relations, sees this as an absolute
necessity if our system of government is to prove equal to the demands
of the years ahead. Before the American Assembly not long ago, he
spoke of the concern that had been centered on improving the adminis-
trative relationships between federal, state, and local governments.
Competent scholars have been studying and reporting on this
subject for years. In 1955, a temporary commission (the so-called
Kestnbaum Commission) completed an analysis of intergovernmental
internal relations. In 1959, Congress authorized a permanent bipar-
tisan Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations composed
of 26 members from the three levels of government and the public
at large.
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