Washington
By MARK GRUENBERG

THE NEXT five years of state-federal relations could see great changes in the relative influence of the various government levels within our federal system. The last five years, covered by Illinois Issues, have shown a continuous gain of federal power over the states. It's unlikely that will continue, but that change depends on the character of American politics and the qualities of American politicians elected on all levels this November. The winners will have to decide the issues of the 1980's, and those issues will be tough.

Revenue sharing: This issue will have to be decided in Congress this year, and the battle is expected to be bitter. Both supporters and opponents are divided and the outcome is uncertain. State and city governments could wind up battling each other over a Carter proposal to eliminate state revenue sharing. Opponents, split between those who favor lower federal taxes and responsibility, and those who oppose the no-strings attached nature of the program, lurk on the sidelines. The net result to the states and cities: Either a loss of revenue if the program ends, or a loss of power if the money is reduced. In each case, the federal government gains power and the states will lose. In Illinois, it would mean increasing the tensions already apparent in the battle over the proposed sales tax cut this last year. That fight left some downstate legislators muttering threats against any more state aid for Chicago.

The loss of revenue sharing would have an unintended result: more contacts with and frustration in dealing with the unresponsive federal bureaucracy in attempts to replace the lost revenue sharing money with other federal money.

Taxation: This issue could be labeled "Son of Proposition 13," but it goes deeper than that. The drive to reduce taxes at all levels has had some unforeseen side effects — rent controls in California and a partywide role reversal on Capital Hill. It is the GOP which now pushes the Kemp-Roth tax cut, while the Democrats worry about inflation. Politicians always have to deal with side effects, but first they must decide on some tax relief program.

But the taxation fight may be only a symptom of a real pressure developing in the body politic. People want to have a greater say in how and why tax dollars are spent. These feelings are not so much anti-tax as they are anti-waste and anti-bureaucracy. They can also be characterized as anti-program. With all the different interest groups plugging for their own interests, there is a proliferation of programs with one often competing against another.

The leaders of the various anti-taxation drives realize that the closer a government is to the voters, the more directly accountable it is to them — and the more influence that organized pressure groups can exert on government. At the state level, that lobby power usually means that the groups with the most money and talent often overwhelm ill-equipped state and local legislators.

If leaders of the anti-taxation drives manage to sustain their momentum through the November elections, it is possible to imagine a drastic weakening of state taxation and regulatory powers as compared to those of the federal government. While state and local governments may become more accountable, they may also have less to account for. The federal government will also be affected, but not as much; it is simply too gargantuan to expect it to move very quickly in any direction any more.

Accountability may be great in theory, but the practical consequences are another matter. Groups which have again and again been slighted by the states and local governments, may once more turn to the federal government for help, setting up a dangerous confrontation at home between the anti-taxers and the advocates of federal government programs. Much will depend on who wins in November — at all levels.

Regional polarization: This is the expansion of a problem in state-federal relations that started late this decade: the Sunbelt-Snowbelt split.

Regardless of who wins that struggle, certain regions of the nation are gaining in political influence. Unlike past years, there is a new regional political game in which each region's politicians seem determined to use their combined influence for their own narrow interests, even if it harms the national interest. Nobody squawked when Franklin D. Roosevelt, a New Yorker, opened military bases in Georgia and only gave Illinois the Michigan Avenue Bridge in Chicago. Contrast that with today's fight over whether to close Chanute Air Force Base in downstate Illinois versus closing Lowry AFB outside Denver.

For a future regional struggle, watch for energy-producing states such as Texas, Louisiana and those in the Rocky Mountains to use their rising populations and House representation to ensure further federal subsidies for exploration and development as well as top dollar prices for their minerals — at the expense of, and regardless of the effect on the Northeast. Watch for the Northeast, including Illinois, to use its political clout in key congressional chairmanships to try to get lower prices and keep available energy supplies for its industries, despite the effect on the West and South. The federal government and individual citizens will get caught in the crossfire.

The last example seems to be a gloomy harbinger of state-federal relations, but with energy shortages and skyrocketing inflation, the struggle between the states and the federal government may get worse.

January 1980/Illinois Issues/37