For many, many years our community has benefited from the use of available federal dollars to fund a myriad of infrastructure needs.

That dependence on federal funding may be in jeopardy, at least in part, if the proposed budget blueprint of President Donald Trump becomes law.

Trump’s budget would eliminate a number of federal programs and reduce the funding of many more.

Like many things, Trump’s budget proposals include cuts to good programs as well as more superfluous ones.

Most troubling for our community are the programs aimed at helping rural communities such as ours with infrastructure needs or programs aiding the less fortunate.

We also worry about the impact on the National Park Service, which is hugely important to our community.

Unfortunately, some government grant projects have the tendency to run amok.

We have long warned that our local governments seem to be addicted to such monies.

Too often when confronted with a need in the community our local leaders’ collective response is: We’ll just apply for a grant.

Although we hope much of what Trump has proposed does not make its way into law because of the large impact it would have on our communities, we also hope the plan serves as a wake-up call.

Local government must become more independent on working through funding its own infrastructure needs without heavy federal input.