emergency but as a means of balancing the power of a distant yet pervasive government. In 1835 Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that “the more [government] stands in the place of associations, the more will individuals, losing the notion of combining together, require its assistance: these are causes and effects that unceasingly create each other.”
Tocqueville recognized that in Europe the aristocracy, together with voluntary associations, had been a vital check on the power of the crown. The danger he saw in America was that, without a powerful aristocracy, the country’s only external check on its government was civil society. Individuals, having broken from the class-bound societies of Europe, were more equal, but they were also weaker and therefore only able to take action collectively, in the form of associations.
Of course, sometimes civil society isn’t enough, and government needs to step in—as it did in West. The damage, estimated at more than $100 million, is more than any small town could deal with on its own. But aid from Washington’s tangle of capricious bureaucracies, even in the face of disaster, is often a mixed blessing. The same Internal Revenue Service that brazenly targeted tea party groups has yet to recognize the West Long-Term Recovery Center as a nonprofit, making it difficult for the group to accept tax-deductible donations at a time when it desperately needs to do so.
That should give us pause, especially in Texas, where we like to crow about our minimal government. Perry is in the habit lately of bragging about this in other states, in hopes of luring more companies here. For the most part, he makes a compelling case. But he fails to mention that Texans still rely heavily on our state government, and our state government in turn relies heavily on Washington, which no one likes to talk about. The $94.6 billion in general revenue the Legislature appropriated in May is considerably less than the $197 billion All Funds budget, which includes federal funding. For all the bluster about Texas’s being a laissez-faire state, we rank eleventh in terms of our reliance on federal funding as a percentage of state general revenue (Perry’s frequent target, California, is thirty-seventh). Washington will pay for 35 percent of all state spending in the upcoming biennium, a share that’s been slowly growing over the decades, bringing more federal conditions, requirements, and influence. On top of that, the federal government directly infuses Texas’s local governments with billions of dollars every year, inflating city and county budgets while entrenching a culture of dependence.
Instead of incessantly boasting about the “Texas miracle,” conservative leaders should be honest about the degree to which we rely on federal funding and boast instead about how Texas is a place where we take care of our own, even when the feds don’t come through. If FEMA won’t cough up all the money the state has requested—an additional $17 million—then Texas should tap into the billions sitting in our Rainy Day Fund (that’s what the fund is for, after all). And maybe Perry should make good on his commitment to pass $1.8 billion in tax cuts so Texans and Texas businesses have more to spare when disasters strike and their neighbors are in need.
If conservatives aren’t willing to put their money where their mouth is and take more responsibility for welfare on the local level, the array of private associations standing between the impassive state and the individual will atrophy. And if we gradually let the government assume the role of sole caretaker, we should not be surprised to find ourselves helpless in its sudden absence—or worse, smothered by its embrace.
John Daniel Davidson is an analyst with the Center for Health Care Policy at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.