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After a long(not-quite-completed) career in the mental health trenchs, I can tell you that the mentally ill landed in the streets as a RESULT of the government, much as schools are now failing to an even greater degree because of the No Child Left Behind Act: it instituted something that sounded good, the Community Mental Health Centers Act, which was to set up adequate community-based facilities, and never since has adequately funded them, though they used the concept as the rationale for emptying the psychiatric hospitals, just as they will now use the NCLB Act to further eviscerate public schooling, especially in the poorest, most vulnerable areas. Special education law is yet a third example; currently, the Feds fund approximatley 12% of the costs of THEIR mandates, leaving states and districts to pick up the other 88% according to their varying resources. I happen to be one of those reviled liberals who think our social ills are too great to be adequately addressed by any entity but a federal government, as indeed most of the civilized countries do. Our government, however, in keeping with our general hypocrisy, (just witness all the concern about the sanctity of marriage in a country whose failure rate is nearly 50%) promulgates generous-sounding proposals and then doesn't fund them. the US Government has specialized for years in *saying* but not *doing* the right thing (various treaties and the Alaska Statehood Act come to mind). Under our "compassionate conservatives", the above is unlikley to improve. I guess it's evident that I'm feeling a bit disgruntled this morning...