Saving Congress from Itself proposes a single reform: eliminate all federal grants-in-aid to state and local governments. This action would reduce federal spending by over $600 billion a year and have a profound effect on how we govern ourselves. The proliferation of federal grants-in-aid programs is of recent vintage: only about 100 such grants existed before Lyndon Johnson took office, and now they number more than 1,100. Eliminating grants to the states will result in enormous savings in...
James L. Buckley may be the only American alive who has held high office in each branch of the federal government as senator of New York, undersecretary of state under Ronald Reagan, and a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. His unique understanding of how Washington works equips him to address the intrusive and exponential growth of the federal government in the past forty years. In Freedom at Risk, Buckley’s collected essays, musings, and speeches tell the real...
