You don't have to bash the federal government to make the case for local action

Former Republican Governor of Indiana Mitch Daniels writes a column for the Washington Post.  He takes conservative positions but he's not a wack job.  That doesn't mean that he doesn't mislead when he writes.

Volunteers planting a tree in 2018.  Getty Images photo.

His current column, "How philanthropy can work without trying to save the world," extols the value of community foundations and philanthropy for taking on local projects.  

He also cites a David Brooks column in the New York Times, "The Localist Revolution," on the value of localism.

Each takes the opportunity to position localism as far superior to federal action.  

But the federal government doesn't deal with rehabilitation of local parks or planting trees--well, the US Forest Service just provided to a lot of communities grants to do just that, "Announcing urban and community forestry funding"--and similarly supra localized projects.  OTOH, community foundations aren't in the position to fund transit systems or run military bases.

(And actually, not unlike the USFS program, the federal government does a lot of pass through funding through states to support local action through programs like the Federal Historic Preservation Fund, Land and Water Conservation Fund, and the Recreational Trails Program.)

The New Deal demonstrated that the federal government was/is capable of accomplishing great things, investing in the nation through investment in community-serving facilities, from rural electrification to building state and local parks via the Civilian Conservation Corps, which was a large jobs program, but it needed projects to do--building college dormitories, municipal buildings, parks, etc. was a good way to keep people employed.

But now, the ideology of neoliberalism ("Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems," Guardian) denigrates government in favor of private action.  Although, while Reagan implemented the ideology on steroids, arguably it started with Jimmy Carter (deregulation of the airlines, etc.) and it's an area of rare bipartisanship.

And in the US, the Republican party has degenerated into an anti-government, anti-public investment stance that makes positive action by the federal government less likely.  

This trickles down and shapes the electorate in ways that make many less inclined to support community initiatives and working together on projects of common interest ("In the land of self-defeat," New York Times).  

George Monbiot argues it's about values and an extrinsic versus intrinsic orientation ("To beat Trump, we need to know why Americans keep voting for him. Psychologists may have the answer," Guardian).  Extrinsics take, intrinsics give.  From the article:

We are not born with our values. They are shaped by the cues and responses we receive from other people and the prevailing mores of our society. They are also moulded by the political environment we inhabit. If people live under a cruel and grasping political system, they tend to normalise and internalise it, absorbing its dominant claims and translating them into extrinsic values. This, in turn, permits an even crueller and more grasping political system to develop. 

If, by contrast, people live in a country in which no one becomes destitute, in which social norms are characterised by kindness, empathy, community and freedom from want and fear, their values are likely to shift towards the intrinsic end. This process is known as policy feedback, or the “values ratchet”. The values ratchet operates at the societal and the individual level: a strong set of extrinsic values often develops as a result of insecurity and unfulfilled needs. These extrinsic values then generate further insecurity and unfulfilled needs.

Furthermore, the federal government, hampered by underfunding, does fail more regularly--albeit under Republican presidents more than Democrats, e.g., the Bush Administration response to Hurricane Katrina, or the Trump Administration response to covid (Trump basically killed 400,000 people) and its hurricane response in Puerto Rico (studies say at least 8,000 people died).

A good example is how the Republicans in Congress are outraged by re-funding the IRS, so it can collect the income taxes people should pay.  They'd prefer the wealthy blow off their obligations.

Neither Daniels nor Brooks write much about Republicans as obstructionists to quality of life and public investment in their states and communities. 

In fact they mostly vote against such bills and then fire off press releases and social media posts about how they brought various federally funded projects to their districts and states.

P.S. Republican-controlled states tend to have reduced quality of life as measured by life expectancy and other indicators ("People in Republican Counties Have Higher Death Rates Than Those in Democratic Counties," Scientific American, "Data shows conservative policies on health, guns and more increase mortality," St. Louis Post-Dispatch).  From the P-D:

Meanwhile, researchers with the University of Washington analyzed political policies on a liberal-to-conservative scale, then measured mortality rates on a range of issues. Some newly empowered Missouri pot smokers might find it unnerving that the study found a correlation between conservative marijuana policies and lower mortality rates. But on virtually every other policy metric — health care, criminal justice, environmental protection, gun safety, labor rights, tobacco taxes — conservative policies and higher mortality rates went hand in hand.

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Mailing envelope, 1960, US Forest Service packet of materials sent to a women's club in Ohio.   The envelope is in bad shape but the other materials are in excellent condition.

Recently I've been collecting (more) ephemera related to parks on various topics.  I came across the most fascinating set of US Forest Service materials from 1960.  

I already knew that "women's clubs" of various types, both when women couldn't vote and/or tended to be "housewives," were key elements in local civic affairs.  As women entered the workforce these organizations tended to wither away, with the major exception of the League of Women Voters.

The director of the Forest Service, Gifford Pinchot, who later became director of the National Park Service, was a proto-feminist in part because of his wife, a suffragette and activist.  Both the Forest Service and NPS cultivated support through women's clubs across the country.

USFS published and distributed materials specifically designed for these groups.

It fits in with my belief that schools, libraries, parks and other public-facing units of local government can be loci for civic engagement, just like community foundations.