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Suggestions for the Budget

This week, President Obama is set to release a “budget blueprint,” which will detail how much the federal government is going to spend in the upcoming fiscal year.  In recent press reports, the Administration has indicated that the blueprint will put the federal government on a path to fiscal responsibility by, among other things, cutting the deficit in half by 2013.

This commitment to fiscal discipline could not come at a better time, although it may be hard to take it seriously given the recent record of congressional Democrats.  Congress just passed a massive government spending bill cloaked in “economic stimulus” that will cost taxpayers more than $1 trillion.  And later this week, as we wait for the President’s new budget to be delivered to Capitol Hill, Democrats in Congress are preparing to pass an omnibus spending bill for the current fiscal year that could add another $400 billion or more in spending.

Just to put the government’s books in perspective, here’s an excerpt from an article that appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle entitled “Deficit breaks all the records” --

The Treasury Department reported Wednesday that the deficit for October through January totaled $569 billion, more than six times larger than the imbalance during the year-ago period.  The deficit for January alone totaled $83.8 billion, worse than the $78 billion economists expected. The government had run a surplus of $17.8 billion in January 2008.

With eight months left in the current budget year, the deficit already has surpassed the deficit for 2008, an imbalance of $454.8 billion that is the full-year record.

The Congressional Budget Office has forecast that the deficit for the current budget year will hit $1.2 trillion, but that estimate does not include the costs of the economic stimulus plan that President Barack Obama is pushing through Congress.  Many economists are forecasting the deficit for the current year will hit $1.6 trillion.

During the campaign and since taking office a little more than a month ago, President Obama has pledged that his Administration will embrace fiscal discipline by taking a scalpel to the massive federal budget and going through it line-by-line to “stop wasteful, obsolete federal government programs that make no financial sense.”  Republicans have been pursuing this goal for years, and we’re pleased to have the President join us.  To help out, we have a suggestion for where he might start to use that scalpel.

The federal government currently operates hundreds of education programs, spread out over multiple agencies.  This results in duplication, waste, and inefficiency, and it ties the hands of local school officials who must abide by stringent requirements to qualify for the multitude of federal programs.  A number of programs have been recommended for elimination by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) after national evaluations deemed them ineffective.  Other programs were pet projects created by members of the Congressional leadership or by past Administrations.  Programs like these are often highly restrictive, serving only a limited group of students, or are duplicative of existing, larger federal education programs.

There’s no doubt that the resources that the federal government provides to states and school districts are important to improving student achievement.  But in a time of limited resources, we should focus on programs that directly serve students, particularly disadvantaged ones, and serve the interests of the American taxpayer.  We urge the Administration to examine all of the programs administered by the U.S. Department of Education and other agencies and eliminate those that do not put students first.  We can support programs that serve students today without saddling them with overwhelming debt tomorrow.  With a new budget on the way, now is a perfect time to reevaluate how well we’re serving students and taxpayers.

Posted by Education Policy Staff (02-23-2009, 09:39 AM) filed under Education

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