The good news is that this year’s budget deficit will be half a
trillion less than last year’s. The bad news is that it still
will top $1 trillion. The worse news is that politicians, those
clever creatures, are constantly looking for ways to keep
enacting expensive new regulations and dispensing goodies
without adding to the budget or the deficit. It’s a way to curry
favor with voters, who tend to like freebies but dislike paying
the costs. One such trick is the unfunded mandate, and it needs
to be reined in. Here’s how an unfunded mandate works: In the
face of today’s still-high unemployment, suppose Congress wants
to enact, say, a new job-training program. It could pay for the
program itself by increasing federal spending, or it could
require businesses or states to foot the bill, escaping any cost
scrutiny. The first approach shows up in the federal budget and
increases the deficit. The second does not; hence the unfunded
mandate’s political appeal. Unfunded mandates are ways to grow
government without ma