Bush Deficit Disaster Puts Your Family at Risk

[Sparx]

This week, I learned that President Bush plans to leave millions of children and families behind in his budget for the fiscal year 2005. The LA Times reported that of the 65 federal programs President Bush is eliminating in his budget, more than half of them are education programs:
The projects Bush would eliminate include a $246-million effort to improve early childhood education in low-income neighborhoods and a $174-million program to foster learning in large high schools. Also targeted are programs that help gifted and talented students, promote arts in education and attempt to stop students from dropping out.
And that's just the tip of the iceberg. He's also making massive cuts to the Community-Oriented Police Services program, taking money out of local communities that pays for the first responders who protect us.
And the same day that a letter laced with a toxin was found in Senate offices, Bush told Congress he wanted to eliminate an $8.2 million program that would help protect our nation's communities from these kinds of attacks.
President Bush is abandoning our children and abandoning the security of our nation.
A Deficit Disaster
President Bush's devastating cuts that hurt our children and make us less secure do nothing to alleviate the enormous deficits he's created that leave America with crippling new debts that will last for generations. Bush took the record surpluses created by President Clinton and turned them into record deficits.

[Pete (Premo)]

You have convinced me, I am voting for Perot again.

[otter (Premo)]

Source

[vraiblonde]

Sparx, do you ever have a real opinion or do you just regurgitate other people's opinions?

[Sparx]

Sparx, do you ever have a real opinion or do you just regurgitate other people's opinions?


Haven't you heard? opinions are like a_ _ holes.
Opinions are too easy to bash and that's all most folks on here know how to do. (whether they know what they are talking about or not.)

Just the facts folks just the facts.

[Ehesef]

Originally posted by Sparx
Sparx, do you ever have a real opinion or do you just regurgitate other people's opinions?


Haven't you heard? opinions are like a_ _ holes.
Opinions are too easy to bash and that's all most folks on here know how to do. (whether they know what they are talking about or not.)

Just the facts folks just the facts.

A source would help us determine if it is fact.

[Frank]

This article is stupid. Without knowing more details, it's hard to make an informed decision as to whether or not these programs NEED to be cut in favor of others. It's also hard to tell if they want Bush to *deepen* the deficit by spending MORE for these programs, or just the typical "cut someone ELSE's money" kind of thing.

But consider - 8 million dollars to protect our kids from the kind of mail attacks, which so far haven't managed to hurt *anyone*? Do we NEED a 174 million dollar program to "foster *learning*" in high school. Excuse me - isn't that why they're THERE in the first place?

Ever since Jimmy Carter created the Department of Education, I've wondered why on earth we need a cabinet level federal department for something that is vastly funded by *state* taxes. Why aren't these programs state-funded? If not, why should the *federal* government pay for something the state won't bother to pay for?

I have no way of knowing if these projects are worthwhile at all - only the constant mantra that "it's for the children". I could just as well say he doesn't care about public health - of our CHILDREN - because he's eliminiating $600 toilet seat covers.

The emotive language ain't doin' it.

[Sparx]

The LA Times reported that of the 65 federal programs President Bush is eliminating in his budget, more than half of them are education programs:

Call the LA Times. ask for their source

[Ehesef]

Originally posted by Sparx
The LA Times reported that of the 65 federal programs President Bush is eliminating in his budget, more than half of them are education programs:

Call the LA Times. ask for their source

Don't be a d*ck. Trying to establish credibility where there is none?

BTW, thanks archi.

[Sparx]

By Seattle Times staff and wire services

Utah's Republican-dominated House voted yesterday to become the first state to
scrap No Child Left Behind Act education mandates that would cost more than the
federal government is willing to pay.

Republicans dropped a threat to abandon the Bush administration program
altogether because that would have cost the state half of its annual federal
education funding, or nearly $107 million. Instead, state representatives voted
64-8 to comply with only those mandates "where there is adequate federal
funding."

It was the latest salvo in a revolt that has been building in classrooms and
legislatures against the biggest education reform in a quarter-century. State
and local education officials and lawmakers are upset over the stringency of
testing requirements and the costs of implementation.

"What I think was a well-intended effort of government has had some serious
consequences," said Republican state Rep. Margaret Dayton, sponsor of the Utah
measure. "We gradually give up our state sovereignty when we accept our tax
money back into the state with strings attached to it."

The bill, which still requires state Senate approval and the governor's
signature, is the strongest position taken by lawmakers in 11 states who have
introduced legislation or nonbinding resolutions challenging the 2002 law. Among
the actions:

• In Virginia, the GOP-controlled House of Delegates voted 98-1 last month
in favor of a resolution calling on Congress to exempt Virginia without penalty
from "the most sweeping intrusions into state and local control of education in
the history of the United States."

• In Hawaii, representatives approved a resolution asking state education
administrators to consider giving up No Child funding until Congress provides
more money. Hawaii hasn't left the program yet.

• In New Hampshire, the state is fighting the Education Department over who
pays for student testing after legislators reduced state funding for testing to
$1 in their budget.

• In Washington state, lawmakers are considering asking President Bush and
the Congress to make changes in the law, including the way schools are judged
for the academic performance of students in special-education programs, or those
learning English as a second language. The proposed resolution also says it's
more educationally sound to judge schools based on the amount of improvement
they make over time. Under No Child Left Behind, states must set annual
test-score goals that all schools must reach.

• Maine and Vermont are considering bills to prevent state funding of
reforms.

• Several districts in Vermont and Connecticut have refused federal money
rather than comply with all No Child Left Behind (NCLB) mandates.

The rebellion, in some cases led by GOP lawmakers, could endanger a signature
achievement of the Bush administration in an election year. At the least, it
highlights the frequent tensions between policies in Washington and their
effects in the classroom.

"I think Bush got maximum benefit for this bill on the day he signed it," says
Jack Jennings, director of the Center on Education Policy, a nonpartisan think
tank in Washington. "Now that we're into the very difficult implementation
problems, he's probably going to get tarnished with the backlash."

On one level, it's not surprising that the chorus of critics is growing louder.
NCLB is the most-significant education reform in a generation, and it is a
morass of complex requirements on everything from who is tested to who can
teach.

Even the fiercest critics tend to agree with the law's philosophy, particularly
its efforts to separate gains for groups such as low-income children and make
schools accountable for progress in each group. They don't always agree with the
implementation.

"Wealthy districts don't have to do much at all under this law," said Gary
Orfield, a Harvard education professor. "Other districts face demands that are
somewhere between difficult and absurd. It's putting maximum pressure on the
most vulnerable districts."

A few states dislike federal intrusion into what's always been a state arena.

"There's not anything Virginia is going to learn from the fact that we have to
give these additional tests," said Republican James Dillard of Virginia's House
of Delegates. "If Clinton had done this, Republicans would have been up in
arms." He pauses. "Republicans are up in arms."

For many of the states complaining, however, their problem isn't so much the
law's details as the possibility that they may foot the bill. A recent Ohio
study concluded the law would cost the state $1.5 billion a year to achieve 100
percent proficiency (a theoretical goal that most educators see as impossible).
States worry that, amid their own tight budgets, they'll pay for tutoring,
transferring and other mandates.

"They got burned" on federal laws like Medicare and special education, Jennings
said. "They don't want to get burned on this."

Compiled from reports by The Christian Science Monitor, The Associated Press and
Seattle Times staff reporter Linda Shaw.