Report of the Commission on Intergovernmental Relations

Abstract

T HE Commission on Intergovernmental Relations issued its Report to the President for transmittal to the Congress in June I955.1 Report with its supporting I5 study documents focused on a variety of issues concerning federal-state relations, ranging from the formulation and conduct of federal regulatory activities to provision of public services for individuals. Report, moreover, describes the divergent interests tax, budget, and program, as well as federal, state, and local which need reconciliation. Some days before the statutory termination of the Commission the Report was released without fanfare in the hope that its importance would grow when students of political science, political economy, and the law could review and assess the Commission's recommendations and the findings of the supporting publications. As the Chairman stated in transmitting the Report: No inquiry of this kind could possibly provide universally satisfactory answers to all of the difficult questions that are under discussion at any particular moment. We are hopeful that this Report will be regarded as the beginning rather than the end of a contemporary study of the subject of intergovernmental relations, and that it will stimulate all levels of government to examine their respective responsibilities in a properly balanced federal system. 2 Commission's Report is in two parts; Part I presents a general discussion of the federal system, the role of the states, and nationalstate relationships in regulatory activities, taxation, and grant programs. Part II deals with joint national, state, and local responsibilities for separate programs. supporting documents provide background for the Commission's deliberations.3 In the pages which follow, the Commission's Report is discussed in the context of the basic po itions underlying specific recommendations. Primary emphasis on division of functional responsibilities. All but four of the Report's I 7 chapters deal with federal grants-in-aid and aided public functions, indicative that the Commission sought by this emphasis to fulfill its statutory charge within its literal meaning: The Commission shall study and investigate all the present activities in which Federal aid is extended to State and local governments, the interrelationships of the financing of this aid and the sources of the financing of governmental programs. Commission shall determine and report whether there is justification for Federal aid in the various fields in which Federal aid is extended; whether there are other fields in which aid should be extended; . . . and all other matters incident to such Federal aid, including the ability of the Federal Government and the States to finance activities of this nature. 4 In terms of the legislative history of the bill and the broad declaration of purposes, various major problems were considered appropriate areas of study.5 Throughout the hearings on the pending legislation, differences of view on the relative importance of different aspects of federal-state relations were brought out.6 At