ALEC in Newsweek: State Lawmakers Against State Bailouts

In their latest op-ed, ALEC Executive Vice President of Policy and Chief Economist Jonathan Williams and Center for State Fiscal Reform Senior Director Lee Schalk explain why more than 200 state legislators and 1,300 other state leaders and concerned taxpayers signed the recent ALEC letter to say “no thanks” to the proposed federal bailout of state and local governments.

Rather than another bailout from the federal government, states need to take the difficult but necessary actions to govern. President Ronald Reagan reminded us that the federal government did not create the states; the states created the federal government. To preserve state autonomy and our system of competitive federalism across the “50 laboratories of democracy,” states need to retain the ultimate responsibility for their taxing and spending decisions—even when it is difficult to do so.

Read the full piece in Newsweek here.