Posted on 02/03/2009 4:25:08 AM PST by Man50D
The proposed $140 billion in education funds included in the $819-billion stimulus bill that passed in the House last week might do little to stimulate the economy in the short-term and some are doubtful that it will have any significant long-term value either.
Conservatives and tax-limitation groups are raising concerns over whether the federal government should be reaching so deeply into what is typically regarded as an area left to state and local authority.
“This would be the most direct intrusion into fiscal policy making in education ever,” said Pete Sepp, vice president for communications at the National Taxpayers Union. “There really isn’t a precedent.”
Members of the Obama administration defend the education funding as being economic stimulus, saying that it is an “investment” in America’s future generations.
“If we want to stimulate the economy, we need a better-educated workforce,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan told the Associated Press last week. “That’s the only way, long-term, we’re going to get out of this economic crisis.”
But conservative education experts are doubtful of any short-term stimulus the $140 billion might help create, and are even more doubtful if the money will do anything to solve the main problem facing schools, which they say is the quality of teaching.
“I don’t think there’s ever a right time for the federal government to expend hundreds of billions of dollars in education,” said Neil McClusky, associate director of the Center for Educational Freedom at the Cato Institute.
“This stimulus package is just a . . . gargantuan version of what has happened for decades, which is politicians spending money in the name of children so that the politicians look like they care,” McClusky said. “But it never has any positive academic effect.”
The legislation allots $13 billion to Title I grants, which would give money to local educational agencies in high-poverty areas; $13 billion to IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) Part B funding for special education; and $20 billion for the repair and modernization of educational facilities at all levels, according to a report by the Republican Study Committee. This includes $14 billion for state agencies to spend on primary and secondary school facilities and $6 billion for higher education facilities.
McClusky, however, said the problem with schools is not that they don’t have enough money, but that they don’t spend the money they have wisely.
“The money is often just flushed down the toilet instead of actually being put as efficiently and effectively as possible toward construction and maintenance needs,” he said.
The construction jobs the money would create might provide a short-term stimulus, but McClusky said the number of jobs would not be as big as stimulus supporters have claimed.
Some experts also say there is little-to-no correlation between spending and student performance.
Sapp pointed out that some less-well-funded districts consistently outperform other districts that have more funding.
McClusky said the United States already stands with Switzerland and Sweden as the industrialized nations that spend the most on education, though he said a great deal of money spent on education in the U.S. today is misused on projects and programs that do not improve the quality of education in the classroom.
“One thing that is very well-established is that our schools are not lacking in resources, at least in money,” he said. “In the long-term, this money is not going to in any way improve student achievement.”
The legislation would also provide $15.6 billion for Pell Grants, scholarships granted to undergraduate students to help subsidize college costs. Even with such a large sum of money, the impact on individual would be marginal--the maximum award for the Fiscal Year 2009-2010 ($5,350) would only increase by about $600 from the previous year’s maximum ($4,731).
McClusky said increasing the money available in these grants would have little if any short-term stimulus because it likely would not significantly increase the number of people going to college.
“For the most part, anybody who wants to go to college can go to college,” he said. “The money is out there.”
Instead, McClusky said Pell Grants might actually have the opposite effect--pushing tuition costs up, which would exacerbate the already existing financial barrier to college. The more aid that is available to students, the more money colleges and universities can charge for tuition, thus causing inflation in college fees.
As the country faces an economic crisis and sinks further into debt, Sapp said many argue that this is not the right time for such a large amount of money to be given out to the education sector, if there is such a thing as a right time.
“The timing is hardly ideal,” Sapp said. “For those who would say we need to fix these schools for the children, what about the debt that is being passed onto them? There’s not going to be much of a future for them if we don’t start considering the implications of all this borrowing.”
What a crock. "Educators" spew the liberal party line, use revisionist textbooks full of propaganda, enable illiterates to graduate, etc. Why? Because they WANT to produce stupid graduates because they are easily malleable and controllable. The inclusion of all the gobs of education money in the "stimulus" package has absolutely nothing to do with educating children and everything to do with paybacks for the NEA.
Silly Republicans! Don’t ask questions! Just pass the thing or you might get a big “BP” burned into your cheek for good measure. Don’t you dare be “BI-PARTISAN” because you know if you don’t want to $140 BILLION go for new schools that means you are blocking America’s economic recovery. Or $335 million to research STD’s (which, what about cancer? I’d imagine people would rather that money to go cancer research if it has to go somewhere) or any other little pet project the Democrats have in there to repay campaign debt.
Total sarcasm.
When are Democrats going to understand that only private business can create employment and subsequently increased tax revenues?
What a bunch of idiots, especially the chief idiot Obama they are. Creating more debt is NOT a stimulus. Government jobs do not create more tax revenues, nor does any money these people spend help the economy because it's money taken out of it in the first place.
School construction entities around the country are nothing more than sinkholes for billions of disappearing dollars.
This has always been a state responsibility now we move this to the feds for another layer of graft and corruption.
If five cents of every dollar ever reaches an actual project I would say that was a high estimate.
Socialism cannot exist without a healthy continually growing capitalist economy. All the revenue for socialism is sucked out of the wages (jobs) created by business. it comes from nowhere else.
So I don't think they understand at all. By NOT taking care of Capitalism and providing stimulus for capitalism to thrive, tax cuts, deregulation etc. The ultimately Socialism fails as well.
Even if 100% of the money reached the intended projects, it's still 100% added debt. It adds no revenue at all, no boost to the economy. It's just more debt.
They may as well just pay people welfare to sit home. It's at least more effective in that it's not spread out so much that it doesn't provide a unemployed family a few months of welfare warrants.
True stimulus of the economy will be accomplished with a tax holiday. It’s quick and it puts the money in the hands of those who are earning it. Face it, you are much more careful when you are spending your own money.
Forget sending out checks to everyone who files a tax return. It takes too long and rewards people who are not producing. A tax holiday OTOH is immediate and benefits the producers.
Sadly we will never see it. The LAST thing liberals want is for society’s producers to realize how much of their effort is being seized by threat of force and passed on to the takers. I don’t know the actual average but I would bet even money the run-of-the-mill family with two workers would get about $200 a month more if there were no withholding. That’s how you stimulate the economy!
Capitalism CAN last indefinitely as long as government spending and the cost of social programs socialist governments implement do not exceede the max revenues capitalism can support. growth in social spending requires growth in the private business sector, which grows along with the growth of the population and consumerism.
Exceeding the max revenues generated by a capitalist society via government spending, increased costs of social programs results in National debt, which we have plenty of as we can see. In fact we've gone over what we can possible hope to ever repay.
Unless drasstic cuts in spending, drastic cuts in social programs and there is an effort by Government to remove as many restrictions to private business as possible in order to allow max growth and job creation, this nation is doomed. Even if the economy was to turn around, taxes required to pay the debt down will keep the nation poor for a decade.
So buy as many suitcases as you can, because your going to need them to carry around all that cash to buy a loaf of bread. Obama has all but guarantied that our dollar will be competeing with that of Zimbabwe.
Simple....more class rooms for the offspring of illegals. Getting ready for the next wave of illegal entry.
As long as you have a Congress that uses the tax code for social engineering and buying votes nothing going to change. One would think the populace would finally get so fed up as to kick the bums out, but alas that does not seem to be so.
I lay the blame for a lot of it, most of it, at the feet of education. They are turning out citizens who have no idea how the system works and fall time and again for the pitch that they can elect someone who will get them something for nothing. It’s the same mindset that teaches kids from day one that you are entitled to a trophy, or a passing grade, for simply doing what is necessary to keep soul and body together.
I am 100% for the fair tax and have supported every candidate who has voiced support for it.
It’s constructon jobs, meaning votes for dems.
Fairtax only sounds good to the wage earner that can't think about where everything comes from beyond his paycheck.
Then you haven't put much thought into what fairtax will do to every sector of the economy.
And "fairtax" certainly won't decrease the amount of tax the government already takes, in fact they'd probably increase their revenues if they ever implemented a 'fairtax'. Then there is the State, whch would also want it's own revenues as well, So there would be a state "fairtax' as well.
The total costs of your Federal and state "fairtax" would Probably be close to 33% fed, 7% state, or 40% of every dollar you spend. And you will have to spend more of them, because everything made will cost considerably more.
Bulk steel will be "fair taxed", bulk plastic will be "fair taxed". Electrical wire will be "fairtaxed", so that's 40% more in fairtaxed costs added to the raw materials just to make a toaster. Then the toaster moves along the line, all the handlers taking their percentage of profit before it winds up on the store shelf, where you buy it, and pay another 40% fairtax on a product that is now selling for about $100, which is about $80 more than it used to cost.
So don't think "fairtax' will prevent the underground economy from expanding as some claim, just the opposite. Offshore smuggling will become rampant, cheap un 'fairtaxed' goods sold on the black market will cause the government to crack down, creating all kinds of laws and regulations, licience and registration fee's to try limit the black market goods. How does a TV licience grab you?
the IRS will grow to twice the size it is now, not be eliminated as some "fairtax" people dream.
Then as I mentioned earlier, imports will have huge duties slapped on them, because any manufacturers stupid enough to stay in America couldn't possibly compete. Exports would dribble to next to nothing.
So ther you go, "fairtax" would be so wonderfull, if you lived in a sealed off country like N Korea.
In orer to make a fairtax work, there would have to be just as many regulations, exemptions, and all the red tape that our current tax system has, so where's the benefit?
You make some interesting points. Some of them seem to be a bit overstated but I’m not expert enough on taxes to refute them with any authority.
I know the system we have now is not the answer.
We wouldn’t be having this discussion if the tax system could simply be returned to its original purpose, to fund the legitimate activities of government. It’s a two-pronged problem as it now stands. Government has gotten itself into hundreds, probably thousands, of area where it has no business. It’s a one way street. In good times government moves into an area with the ‘for the _________’ excuse. It’s a ratchet thing, it only goes one way.
The second prong of the problem is that the tax system is used to further social engineering in so many ways. The result is that a truthful liberal will readily admit that ‘taxing the rich’ doesn’t necessarily increase tax revenues, help the less fortunate or meet the test of being fair. But, it makes the rich pay their ‘fair share’ and that’s more important to a liberal than helping the poor and disadvantaged.
You’ve done a good job of outlining your concerns with a fair tax approach. A tip of my hat for taking the time and making the effort for a thorough job. Next step, what do you purpose? We are approaching the point of no return, having long since passed the point of diminishing returns.
Thanks for a stimulating exchange. One of the reason I love FR.
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