Education spending boosts economy in short- and long-term. No brainer... if you have a brain
To balance their budgets, states across America are being forced to slash educational spending. Federal government spending to cover state government education cuts seems a perfect use of economic stimulus money because it achieves the two main objectives of the stimulus: 1) puts (or keeps) money in the pockets of those likely to spend it now; and, 2) boosts America’s long-term ability to generate GNP and taxes by educating the next generation. It’s both a quick pick-me-up and a long-term economic enhancer. What’s not to like?
Well, The New York Times' Nicholas Kristof is pleading with Congressional Republicans to stop blocking funds for education:
The effort to prune the stimulus package to make it more palatable to Republicans is focused on slashing money for education.
The proposed cuts, by various accounts, include $40 billion to help states (in large part with education budgets), possibly $14 billion for Pell grants, and $14 billion for other education programs… [Republicans] particularly don’t want Headstart and school construction in the stimulus…
If education is our greatest challenge with huge significance for our long-term economic competitiveness, it’s also precisely where states are likely to cut…
Education is the best way to fight poverty, the best way to break the cycle of the underclass, the best way to ensure a broader distribution of opportunity in America, the best way to preserve our country’s economic competitiveness. And it’s just as good for stimulus purposes as repaving a road — and you still want to throw those school children out the window?
Stimulating the economy with infrastructure spending is great, but there are only so many machines and appropriately skilled workers to build bridges and railroads and only so many worthwhile “shovel-ready” projects to fund. (For example, commuters riding the up-to-36-year-old railcars that haul passengers between Fairfield County and Manhattan are still waiting for railcars ordered in 2006 because there simply aren’t many companies that manufacture railcars for American railways.) Our severe economic crisis requires far more stimulus than infrastructure spending alone can provide.
Education offers both short-term stimulus and long-term economic benefits (including higher future tax receipts). It’s a no-brainer. Sadly, many in Washington seem to have no brains.
Posted by James on Friday, February 06, 2009