The Coming Squeeze: How the Allegheny County Region Must Prepare for the Coming Era of Federal Austerity

In the grand machinery of American government, federal dollars often seem like the oil—flowing silently, invisibly, sustaining the performance of the whole. But the oil is thinning. And for our region, with its layered and overlapping systems of local government, the warning lights are beginning to blink.

The end of pandemic-era relief, combined with a renewed Republican push for federal austerity, signals the start of a new era in public finance—one that demands clarity, cooperation, and courage. This isn’t a crisis yet. But it is a reckoning.

Earlier this year, House Republicans—guided by the Heritage Foundation’s sweeping “Project 2025” playbook—proposed slashing domestic discretionary spending by up to 30% over the next decade. The targets include housing assistance, public health, clean energy, infrastructure, and local law enforcement support. While few of these proposals have become law outright, they are already shaping federal budget ceilings. A bipartisan cap deal passed in late 2023 locks in flat or declining funding for non-defense programs through 2025.

Meanwhile, debt service and entitlement growth are crowding out the discretionary dollars communities rely on. The Congressional Budget Office now projects that interest on the national debt will exceed all domestic discretionary spending by 2034. This is not a theoretical exercise in budget math. It’s a redirection of the nation’s public capacity—away from the civic sphere and toward the management of obligations we’ve already incurred.

And this fiscal contraction won’t stop in Washington. It’s coming for the states next. Pennsylvania, already facing long-term structural deficits and constitutional limits on borrowing, is particularly vulnerable. With a Senate unwilling to consider new revenues, any reduction in federal support will trigger cuts in state aid to schools, transit, housing, and human services. And when the state gets squeezed, it passes the burden along—to counties, municipalities, and school districts that are already operating at the edge.

That edge is thinner than many people realize. Southwestern Pennsylvania remains one of the most municipally fragmented regions in the country. Across just one county, more than 100 local governments deliver duplicative public services, operate individual fleets and facilities, and maintain separate administrative structures. Add to that the patchwork of authorities, districts, commissions, and boards created to fill the gaps—and you have a system with more seams than surface.

This fragmentation isn’t just inefficient—it’s expensive. It inflates overhead. It slows capital investment. It creates disparities in service delivery based not on need, but on arbitrary jurisdictional lines drawn a century ago. In a time of abundant federal support, we can paper over those inefficiencies. In a time of retrenchment, they become liabilities.

Now is the moment to act.

We must build a smarter, more collaborative public sector before the fiscal pressure tightens. That starts with shared services—public safety, public works, waste management, and code enforcement—areas where coordination can build capacity for action without reducing quality. We need intergovernmental agreements that aren’t one-off experiments but durable, scalable models. Our region has made some progress here, but it has been too slow and too isolated.

We need a modern approach to capital planning—one that crosses municipal boundaries, aligns with climate resilience, and leverages our remaining federal and state funds for regional impact. Our infrastructure needs are not distributed evenly, and neither should our investments be. We can no longer afford to treat every local government as an island.

Equally critical—and too often unspoken—is the need to consolidate the tax base. Service coordination cannot function if revenue remains siloed by outdated jurisdictional boundaries. There are workable models. Regional service authorities with pooled funding arrangements. Joint finance entities empowered to issue bonds and allocate funds equitably. Formal municipal mergers that unite tax bases under a common governance structure. Even simple revenue-sharing agreements tied to shared service delivery can help balance the scales.

Because the truth is this: our most under-resourced communities often face the greatest service needs, but they are structurally incapable of raising the revenue to meet them. Meanwhile, adjacent municipalities with stronger tax bases may operate duplicative services with only marginal benefit to their residents. That kind of imbalance is more than inefficient—it’s unjust. And as intergovernmental aid contracts, it becomes unsustainable.

We must also be honest about the need for structural consolidation. In some places, that may mean formal mergers. In others, it may mean regional governance frameworks built around shared needs and scalability. Whatever the shape, the guiding principle must be this: scale matters. Fragmentation is not localism—it is dysfunction disguised as tradition.

And while we rethink structure, we must also rethink voice. If local leaders don’t speak with unified clarity in Harrisburg and Washington, we will be overlooked—or worse, quietly defunded. Too many legislators advocating for cuts represent districts whose public sectors depend deeply on the very programs they’re voting to shrink. That contradiction won’t resolve itself. We need to call it out, publicly and repeatedly.

Some argue that economic growth will outpace these cuts, that local tax bases will rebound, that innovation will save us. But that optimism cannot substitute for strategy. Growth without coordination just widens the gap between communities. Innovation without scale rarely survives beyond the grant period. What we need now is not a new app or a marketing campaign. We need grown-up governance.

That means resisting the instinct to wait for a bailout. It means naming the political roots of this coming squeeze—not as a partisan tactic, but as a prerequisite to solving it. The current wave of fiscal contraction is not inevitable. It is a deliberate ideological project, advanced under the guise of responsibility but aimed squarely at dismantling the public sphere.

If we believe in what government can do—if we want clean water, functioning transit, economic growth and mobility, public safety, and infrastructure that works—we need to make that case. And we need to build the systems that can deliver it, even in a leaner era.

The next few years will test our capacity to lead, to collaborate, and to adapt. The budget won’t do it for us. The federal government and state won’t rescue us. But we still have choices.

We can protect the future by getting smarter now. It's time for us to lead.

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About Andrew Flynn

Andrew is a Mt. Lebanon commissioner, public finance and policy expert, volunteer firefighter, and community advocate committed to building safer, more resilient, and better-connected neighborhoods. Through public service and hands-on experience, Andrew works every day to make a positive impact in our community.

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