Senator Tom Coburn and Rep. James Lankford, both from Oklahoma have suggested that the federal gasoline tax collected at the pump simply stay in our state.  In other words, “we’ll take care of our own roads, thank you very much!”  I wrote about this several months ago as a concept that would hopefully catch on.  Why stop with roads?  

You see, this is the next and more radical step after block grants.  Block grants send money to the states that the local taxpayers have already turned over to the feds.  What Coburn and Lankford are recommending is much more radical and makes more sense:  not sending the money to the feds in the first place!  

What is the next logical step after block granting Medicaid?  ”Not sending our money to D.C. for an expensive night on the town”, as William Buckley used to say.  Why not embrace this concept across the board?  Why send education money to D.C. first, for example?  All you get back is some rule about what we must do with our unused “snow days.”  I’m going to stop now before I write the longest blog in the history of blogging.  Seriously, where do you stop?  

G. Keith Smith, M.D.