The Budget Part I and Education

President Obama announced the details of his 2009 budget late last week. Now I expected the growth in government to be significant, but even I did not expect what was released by the administration. The price tag is currently listed at $3.6 trillion for the fiscal year 2009, but many of the true costs are hidden because it will expand the federal government to unheard of levels, forcing us to continually fund this monster for years to come. The budget, in conjunction with the recently passed stimulus package, will take the national debt to unheard of levels, with the 2009 budget deficit being $1.75 trillion, which is roughly 12.3% of the total GDP of the United States. Even if the economy recovers as fast as Obama claims it will under his stimulus, which it won't (he projects 3.5% positive growth in the year 2010, after a decrease of over 1% this year, despite tax increases and growth restrictions on energy production from cap and trade), he only hopes to get the deficit down to $1 trillion by the end of his first term. Just to put these numbers in perspective, in President Bush's final year in office the deficit was a record $455 billion, which is slightly less than half the $787 billion stimulus that was just signed into law. People love slamming Bush for fiscal irresponsibility and the high costs of the war in Iraq (which I think they rightly should), but it is nothing more than drops in the bucket compared to what Obama has planned.

I don't think I would be so angry about all of this unless I wasn't so sure that this federal spending was going to be completely wasted. For example, the stimulus devoted $81.1 billion in "education" spending, while the 2009 budget confers another $46.7 billion (although neither of these numbers include Obama's increase in Pell grants that will be at least another $10 billion). Where is this money going? Are you telling me that with all of this spending, we can not increase the standard of education in America? The reason why this money doesn't help is because it really isn't going to initiatives designed to most effectively helped underprivileged youth. Instead it continually increases the size of the Department of Education, and the bureaucracy associated with it, and to special projects bought by the campaign money supplied by a variety of special interest groups.

What is truly lacking in our educational system in the U.S. is competition. Sure there is some competition between public and private schools, but it is skewed in favor of the public schools because selective monetary support from the government. For competition to truly effect positive change in the U.S. educational system, the government cannot implicitly decide that it can provide the public with the best possible education and only provide support to citizens who choose its failing schools. The counterargument, however, is that it is the duty of the government to provide all its citizens with a minimal level of education, and public schools are necessary otherwise no school would accept the poorest students. This is simply untrue.

The District of Columbia has one of the most progressive voucher systems in the U.S. Every year the federal government will provide up to a $7,500 voucher for students who wish to use that money on private education. This system has been a great success for everyone involved except the public school officials. They have continued to see falling test scores and decreased enrollment as the best and most determined students leave in order to get a chance at succeeding in life. The teachers at these public schools are not accountable at all, as the unions protect their members from discipline, even if the teachers themselves are failing. The only major problem with D.C.'s voucher program is its size. It's much too small. Last year only 1,700 students were approved for the program. The reason that it was so small was because of strong opposition from powerful teacher's unions because they can feel their monopoly grip on providing K-12 education slipping away.

Worst of all, President Obama and his congressional counterparts led by Congressman Dick Durbin plan on ending the D.C. voucher plan next year. For a story of how this move will adversely affect one underprivileged family whose children attend the same school as president Obama's children see the WSJ article found here. Bowing to the political power of the unions once again, Democrats are hurting one of their strongest constituencies while claiming they are doing it to protect them. Now I dare you to find one family who takes advantage the voucher program who has anything but good things to say about it (other than it should be expanded). That is the main reason why the democrats are ending the program using a procedural vote, so that the press won't pay it much attention.

Those citizens who are dedicated to succeeding can and will succeed if they are given the opportunity to do so. That's what a voucher system does. It allows the poorest Americans to choose whether or not to attend a failing, dangerous school with no future opportunities, or a school that will give them a chance at becoming productive citizens. President Obama and the other democrats want to spend tremendous amounts of money on failing public schools in an attempt to create an equality of outcome in terms of the education received by students across the country. This is an impossible task and goes in the face of the ideals America was founded on. America was founded on the principles equality of opportunity, which is provided by a voucher system, not equality of outcome, which is the major premise of Marx's communism.