Maybe the solution for communities and local service organizations when federal funding dries up is a little local socialism. There is no doubt that fiscal policy shifts in Washington are having potentially significant effects on local organizations that do good works. In Knoxville, these include eviction prevention programs, the Emerald Youth Foundation and the Big Ears festival. Dozens of Knox County organizations are dealing with the loss of more than 100 employees that had been provided via a federally funded CAC AmeriCorps program. Last week, local Boys and Girls Clubs and YMCA officials warned that $1.6 million of paused federal funding could potentially jeopardize their subsidized and free childcare programs.

If we value these services, we have choices. Knoxvillians who care about affordable or free childcare could support a $1.6 million local tax increase to fund it directly. Alternately, we could divert an additional $1.6 million from existing city and county programs to the YMCA and Boys and Girls Club. Why not consider the same solution for every local social service organization suffering from federal funding cuts?

That’s the nice thing about local government: it’s small enough to actually force trade-offs. It makes clear that money doesn’t magically appear from nowhere.

For years, I have suggested that proponents of a single payer health care system could approach the issue from a local, rather than national, level. Why couldn’t the city of Knoxville offer free medical insurance to every resident? Of course, it wouldn’t actually be free, since the city would have to pay everyone’s premiums, but that would be a simple matter of enacting a local tax increase for that purpose. The beauty of attempting an ambitious program like this at the local level is that it clarifies the cost of “free” and forces residents to define priorities.

Unlike the federal government, cities can’t borrow endlessly or print money. But that’s a feature, not a fault. It forces a fiscal discipline that simply doesn’t exist in a system where 25% of expenditures are with borrowed money and up to 40% of the population barely contributes. When people must pay for what they value, spending becomes intentional.

Socialism can work as a benevolent dictatorship in small systems – like a family. It’s hard for larger systems, and impossible for a system with 330 million people. Everyone understands the benefits of free stuff, but a complex system only works when everyone it understands the cost of every free thing.

Social services are valuable. Paying for them is hard. But if people want the benefits and are willing to confront the costs, a little local socialism might be less radical than it sounds. We just have to admit that “free” is never actually free.

David Moon is president of Moon Capital Management. A version of this piece originally appeared in the USA TODAY NETWORK.