GOVERNMENT `MANDATES' UNDERMINE DEMOCRACY.(MAIN)

Byline: Dan Davidson

Unfunded mandates are so much a part of the way governments operate that to do away with them would constitute a major revolution.

Such a revolution is needed.

Mandates are the imperial license for governments to spend money and create programs without going through the unpleasant business of raising the taxes to pay for them.

With them the federal government greatly expands its power at the expense of all lesser governments, while the state expands its at the expense of the localities. Local governments are left with little more than the tab.

The Saratoga County administrator has estimated that 75 percent of …