Did Bush really cut education spending?

Supportnospin.com ^ | Raymond Green

[supportnospin.com]

Did Bush cut federal education spending?

In an apparently confusing tax cut, mixed messages are being sent to honest Americans looking for the truth. Most Americans do not want to hear the "Kennedy spin" on Bush's education budget; they just want to know what it is. The unfortunate part is, when many American's hear the spin put out, they don't know the difference between truth and spin.

Bush's new budget plan does not cut education; in fact it boosts education funding. "The proposed $44.6 billion education budget would triple the money available for literacy programs and boost federal spending on elementary and secondary schools", says CNN.com. As it states in the budget proposal itself, "The President's agenda measures how well we are educating our children, not in dollars or number of programs, but in results." The truth is we all know what happens when we evaluate the results and progress - if any - of the money thrown at issues from Democrats. Democrat's get puffy and scream wrongdoing, if there isn't any, they create it.

"The measure gives states and school districts more freedom over how they spend federal dollars, but requires them to raise student achievement, monitor teacher quality and close the gap between poor and middle-class students and white and minority students," states Associated Press on LATimes.com . If you evaluate close enough, you'll see that if the education goals are met, schools will have more freedom to spend federal dollar however the choose. The goal here is education. If the children aren't getting educated correctly, what is the point? Of course, Senator Kennedy (D, Mass.) seems to think otherwise. In the article on LATimes.com he states, ""With the president's cuts in education, 33,000 children will be denied after-school programs that keep kids off the streets. With the president's cuts in education, 6 million needy children will be left behind." What he chose to leave out is if results are achieved, meaning children are being educated correctly, there's no truth to this statement. He also fails to mention the hundreds of millions of minority and poor children already being left behind in schools due to mass amounts of waste. In short, you now have to work for your money, and that is also a sin to Democrats favoring handouts.

We all know and understand, though, that this is typical politics, dirty politics. Democrats are accusing Bush of children's lack of education blaming it on lack of money. Either they forgot, or honestly don't realize, that money has been being thrown around for the last 8 years to no avail. They've had the opportunity to throw money around, now they have the opportunity to view the results. Nothing. Nothing is changing, so what sense does it make to throw money around. When you have a child you want to take the trash out for $10, do you give him the money first? Hypothetically, say you do and the trash doesn't get taken out. Do you hand him the $10 first next week? No, not intelligently anyway. You wait until the trash gets taken out, and then give him the funds. This is the same scenario, only on an easier to understand basis. If you've thrown money at schools to fix the problem and nothing improves, the obviously most effective solution is wait for improvement, then give them the funds.

Education budgets are not getting cut, they are actually increasing and being given to those who work the hardest to improve their education gaps. You know, the old work and reward method Democrat's despise. The money up front is actually being limited, though the funds are fully ready to those who've earned it. This simple approach increases quality of education, demands schools work harder resulting in children's benefit, and prevents mass amounts of waste.

I salute Bush on the "tax cut" as Kennedy calls it, or the "intelligent spending proposal" as I call it. The truth is the money is being increased, but not wasted, and so are children's educations. When the plan is over, we'll compare results to the 8 years of Democratic education proposals. You can bet there will be improvements, because schools won't have any other choice.

By Raymond Green (Supportnospin.com)

[supportnospin.com]

The spin just keeps gaining momentum

[FreeTally]

Rule #1: The federal government never cuts spending.

Rule #2: If you believe the federal government has reduced spending, see Rule #1.

[zoyd]

The truth is the money is being increased, but not wasted, and so are children's educations.

I thought the name of this guy's site was supportnospin.com.

That quote is as much spin as anything. Federal education spending, almost by definition, is waste.

[Fish out of Water]

index bump

[hsmomx3]

It amazes me at how much money the government can spend per child and yet, look at how much homeschooling parents spend per child. They ought to take a lesson from us homeschoolers!

[supportnospin.com]

Spending is waste? Please. The statement that all spending is waste is about as ignorant as it can get. I suppose all the spending done on the military has been wasted as well right? Tell the Taliban that. I suppose all of us on this board are educated by private schools, right? Wrong again. I consider spending to enhance education good, as long as the children's education is being enhanced, which it isn't right now. Therefore it's getting wasted. Spending by the way is not waste "by defintion" or "almost by definition". If you need a real definition, I can certainly post one for you from Webster's.

[yoe]

Kennedy is paththic isn't he? They all are over there on the left. For eight years they did nothing about fixing education, they did provide more jobs on school staffs but not for educational gains; the children languished per-usual while teachers got bigger salaries and more employee loads at schools.

I spoke with a first grade teacher in one of our "better" public schools, she didn't have enough construction paper, pencils or crayons, certainly not glue or tape for her little charges to make Easter cards etc. But they have special this and special that for children who can't read or write.

The democrats dumped billions into the education system; they couldn't account for some $340 Million of it but the teachers were happy with new perks; the superintendents were happy with more money and the new hires were happy with new jobs...but the children languished - per-usual.

Teaching has not improved as a matter of fact a test given in some states for the teachers found they couldn't pass it. The teachers complained; the heavily weighted democratic school boards said the tests were too hard so they lowered the standards. The teachers complained about the children having to take tests for the state, in order to graduate from various grades as the students couldn't pass the tests, they were too hard. So the bright lights, teachers and state Education Department lowered the standards on-the-test! Money? What on earth does Money have to do with learning? Poor undereducated teachers and poor silly Teddy, his lies have gotten him in a lot of trouble but some people would rather have perks and pay offs than educate the young. Work for their money? Only if we parents and grandparents keep their feet to the fire!

[vaudine]

Because in the past two years the education budget has had whopping increases, Bush's new budget holds INCREASED SPENDING to about 2%. As you all know, that is a CUT by Democrat definition. I am SOOOOOoooooo sick of their spin.

Since Carter, education has had tremendously increased spending with zero results to show for the money. All I can see that it funded is school mandates to teach children how to become citizens of a global society, how to feel good about themselves (accomplishment from true learning would do that much better than the "feel good" programs), and teach that homosexuality is just another all right lifestyle.

One of the best ideas Repubs ever had was in 1994 when they wanted to close down education as a cabinet level dept. This cabinet Dept. sucks up untold millions for administrators, most of whom are radical liberals.Repubs.let the Dems and the media roll them over by not getting their message out--they were labeled "against" education, just as they were labeled against the elderly on SS and Medicare. AND Duuhh! people bought the spin. Would Dan,Peter and Tom and Judy lie? What is WRONG with the public--they act brainless and clueless.

Excuse my rant--it's just how frustrated I am.

vaudine

[Dave S]

Perhaps it was just your writeup but you didnt convince me that there wasnt a cut in spending. Your head line talks about was there a cut in spending and then you say no but I didnt find your proof in the article. Rather you seemed to switch topic from spending to results. Fair enough, results are more important. But thats not what your headline said, nor what the Democrat argument was. Seems you were spinning.

How about clarifying this for me. What was total education department spending last year and what is proposed in the budget for this year? Is that an increase or decrease?

[supportnospin.com]

They increased spending. Senator Kennedy stated in LATIMES.com among other things the exact opposite, a blatant lie. I put a quote up from CNN.com that even states the spending was increased, surprisngly something positive from CNN. Kennedy is upset because although there is more money available, the schools have to earn it. Therefore he states there's a cut since no school will really earn it. It's like the altering voting rights for criminals always catches slack for affecting the blacks, implying it's racist. Democrats like this apply no repsonsibility to the subject at hand. Instead, they take the results and spin them to say what they want. Inevitably, in the end, schools may not get as much as last year because they don't meet the standards, not because the money isn't available.

[JohnGalt]

I was actually hoping he did cut education spending but I guess not...We are all New Democrats Now

[supportnospin.com]

I agree, it's overbudgeted. However, it he is accused of it, it should be true. Also, if the money must remain available, I would much rather it be on an improvement and reward system rather than the reward for nothing process that was in place. The lesser of two evils I suppose.

[dalebert]

Another Democrat lie.

[Rule of Law]

Bush's new budget plan does not cut education; in fact it boosts education funding.

Remember how the GOP promised to do away with the Department of Education? So much for that promise.

[xeno]

Bush's budget proposed to increase total education spending by 2.8%, or $1.4 billion in fiscal year 2003. That includes both student aid and elementary and secondary spending. That will bring total Dept of Ed spending to a whopping $50 billion! Last year it was just over $48 billion.

The "cuts" Kennedy is talking about exist only in liberal-land and he is exploiting most people's lack of knowledge about how programs are actually funded in Washington. The difference is between what a program is "authorized" to spend (the maximum possible in any given year) and what is actually "appropriated" (or in this case, proposed to be appropriated by Bush)-- that is what is actually spent in a given year.

H.R. 1, the No Child Left Behind Act that Bush pushed through last year authorized spending at about $29 billion for programs within it. Bush's budget proposed spending $22 billion for those programs this year. By way of comparison Congress funded those programs at about $21 billion last year (HR 1 programs are almost half of the total Dept of Ed budget). Big surprise, programs are ALMOST NEVER funded at their fully authorized levels, especially in the first year of their existence. So what Kennedy is saying is that since Bush didnt ask Congress to spend the MAXIMUM possible in the first year of the program's existence, that to him is a cut. Go figure.

[Dave S]

Thanks guys. I wasnt agreeing with Kennedy I just wanted to know on what basis the claim was being made and what the real facts were. Thanks again.

[altair]

Spending is waste? Please. The statement that all spending is waste is about as ignorant as it can get. I suppose all the spending done on the military has been wasted as well right?

zoyd didn't say all. Most of the spending is waste. If you think there is no waste in the military budget, I have a $600 toilet seat to sell you. The data on education spending clearly shows that the more money spent on education, the lower the quality. This is a local problem as well as a federal problem.

[terilyn]

Thanks for posting this and clarifying the lies Kennedy has been spewing. I've been wondering about this.

The Kennedy spin sounds like the public schools spin here in Minnesota last year. They asked for a 8% increase and the legislature gave them 4%, (the numbers are approx), so almost every school district in the state came out asking for money via a local levy referendum with the lie that the legislature had "cut" their budget.

I guess when you budget with what you wish you had vs what you actually have this might be viewed as a cut.

I'd sure rather have the schools that are doing something right get the money than just throw it at all of them hoping something works.