Federalismo fiscal

A discussão sobre o federalismo fiscal no Brasil, nos últimos quatro anos, apresentou um certo recuo. Só na academia ela continua séria. No debate público, ela está contaminada por um discurso de má qualidade, basicamente politiqueiro.

Mas isto não nos impede de voltar ao tema (é até um dever cívico lembrar este pessoal de suas obrigações). Portanto, eis uma nova dica.

Do Intergovernmental Grants Create Ratchets in State and Local Taxes?
Testing the Friedman-Sanford Hypothesis
Russell Sobel, George R. Crowley

Federal grants often result in states creating new programs and hiring new employees, and when the federal funding for that specific purpose is discontinued, these new state programs must either be discontinued or financed through increases in state own source taxes. Government programs tend to be difficult to cut, as goes Milton Friedman‘s famous quote about nothing being as permanent as a temporary government program, suggesting it is likely that temporary federal grants create permanent (future) ratchets in state taxes. Far from being purely an academic question, this argument is in practice why South Carolina‘s Governor Mark Sanford attempted to turn down federal stimulus monies for his state. In addition to examining the impact of federal grants on future state budgets, we also examine how federal and state grants affect future local government budgets. Our findings confirm that grants indeed result in future state and local tax increases of roughly 40 cents for every dollar in grant money received in prior years.

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• Publicado em: Uncategorized
• Etiquetado:Desenvolvimento econômico, federalismo fiscal, federalismo preservador de mercados, hipótese de Friedman-Sanford