Over at Downsizing the Federal Government, we focused on the following issues this week:

• HUD community development programs illustrate what happens when the federal government severs the relationship between local officials and local taxpayers.
• Republicans should package their spending reforms as worth undertaking even if the government had a surplus.
• The sclerosis at the U.S. Postal Service is a reflection of the sclerosis in Congress.
• Promises to hold down future discretionary spending levels and partial program trims are not real spending cuts.
• The president’s high‐​speed rail plan is probably dead. Unfortunately, fiscal federalism isn’t faring much better.

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