Unfunded mandates

In the United States, federal mandates are orders that induce "responsibility, action, procedure or anything else that is imposed by constitutional, administrative, executive, or judicial action" for state and local governments and/or the private sector.

An unfunded mandate is a statute or regulation that requires a state or local government to perform certain actions, with no money provided for fulfilling the requirements. Public individuals or organizations can also be required to fulfill public mandates.

As of 1992, 172 federal mandates obligated state or local governments to fund programs to some extent. Beginning with the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as well as the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the United States federal government has designed laws that require state and local government spending to promote national goals. During the 1970s, the national government promoted education, mental health, and environmental programs by implementing grant projects at a state and local level; the grants were so common that the federal assistance for these programs made up over a quarter of state and local budgets. The rise in federal mandates led to more mandate regulation. During the Reagan Administration, Executive Order 12291 and the State and Local Cost Estimate Act of 1981 were passed, which implemented a careful examination of the true costs of federal unfunded mandates. More reform for federal mandates came in 1995 with the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act (UMRA), which promoted a Congressional focus on the costs imposed onto intergovernmental entities and the private sector because of federal mandates. Familiar examples of Federal Unfunded Mandates in the United States include the Americans with Disabilities Act and Medicaid.

An "intergovernmental mandate" generally refers to the responsibilities or activities that one level of government imposes on another by constitutional, legislative, executive or judicial action. According to the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995 (UMRA), an intergovernmental mandate can take various forms:

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