Mandates, Block Grants, Categorical Grants....Oh My!

Okay so I'm sure you've heard of these words before mentioned in class all the time but do you actually know what they mean? Well just in case your like me and you "know" what they mean, let's do a little review! So what are mandates? Mandates are terms set by the national government that states must meet whether or not they accept federal grants. So what that pretty much means is that the federal government pretty much forces the state to comply with what they want done. For example, the drinking age. When the federal government wanted to raise the drinking age to 21 years old there was a state that refused. The government then said that they would not give them the money to pay for a project they needed to complete, but the state pretty much said that they didn't care, they would not raise the drinking age. then the government said they didn't care what the state thought and that they would have to raise the drinking age, whether they wanted to or not.

Now let's cover block grants. What are block grants? Welp, block grants are pretty much just a large sum of money given to a state or local government to fund a specific issue or problem with general provisions. The local/state governments set up more specific granting guidelines within their own jurisdictions, for making smaller grants to various agencies and nonprofits. The local government creates and manages a process to identify local needs and for coordinating the grantmaking process, monitoring and evaluating the outcomes.
And here is a table/picture of current block grant proposals.

TABLE 1. Current Block Grant Proposals

Child Welfare Gives states the option to receive Title IV-E Foster Care funding as flexible grant. Food Stamps Permits up to five states to receive State Food Assistance Block Grant instead of food stamps. Head Start Pilot program permits up to nine states to receive Head Start funding as flexible grant. Housing Replaces Section 8 vouchers with the Flexible Voucher Program, a block grant to public housing agencies. Job Access and Reverse Commute Replaces current project-based program for provision and development of employment transportation services for low-income workers and reverse commuters. Job Training Combines the Adult, Dislocated Worker, and Employment Services State grants to form a single block grant.

Justice Assistance Grant Consolidates the Local Law Enforcement Block Grant, Byrne Formula [Block] Grant, Byrne Discretionary Grants, and Community Oriented Policing Services Hiring Grants to form single block grant. Medicaid Gives states the option to consolidate Medicaid and SCHIP funding into state acute care and long-term care allotments. New Freedom Program Promotes access to alternative transportation methods for individuals with disabilities. Superwaiver Expands authority for states to seek waivers of statutory or regulatory requirements attached to low-income programs, subject to approval of secretary of administering department. Surface Transportation Pilot program permits up to five states to manage formula highway program funds as a block grant.

And last but not least categorical grants. Now categorical grants and block grants have alot of similarities but they also have their differences. So what are categorical grants? Categorical grants are the main source of federal aid to state and local government and can only be used for specific purposes and for helping education, or categories of state and local spending. During the development of the Interstate Highway System, congressional grants provided roughly 90% of the funding. Categorical grants may be spent only for narrowly defined purposes and 33% of categorical grants are considered to be formula grants. Examples of categorical grants include Head Start, the Food Stamp Program, and Medicaid.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_grant
http://www.urban.org/index.cfm