Education Bailout for Unions & Stimulus Pushers

For Texas & only Texas this funding rule will be in place through 2013. The Wall Street Journal Maintaining the salaries & generous benefit plans for members of teachers unions is indeed a top Democratic priority.  Witness yesterdays 247-161 largely party-line House vote to approve a Senate bill shovelling another $26.1 billion out to state Education & Medicaid programs. The National Education Association and other unions will get as much as $100 million in additional dues from this bill much of which will flow immediately to endangered Democratic candidates in competitive House & Senate races this year.   The White House has promoted the bill as emergency assistance for strained state budgets. Thats why $10 billion of the bills funding is allocated to education and the money comes with strings that will multiply the benefits for this core Obama constituency. To treat Washingtons spending addiction the November elections are the taxpayers best chance to stage an intervention. But until then President Obama and the Democratic Congress are determined to keep pushing strung-out state governments to take one more fix. But this unique brand of therapy drives states to spend more not less. The assistance is so expensive that several governors were begging for relief even before Mr. Obama signed it into law. Standing with teachers yesterday in the White House Rose Garden Mr. Obama said We cant stand by and do nothing while pink slips are given to the men and women who educate our children or keep our communities safe. Specifically the bill stipulates that federal funds must supplement not replace state spending on education. Also in each state next years spending on elementary and secondary education as a percentage of total state revenues must be equal to or greater than the previous years level. Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi did the math and figured out his state will be worse off. Mr. Barbour says the bill will force his state ... 

to rewrite its current year fiscal 2011 budget. There is no justification for the federal government hijacking state budgets but that is exactly what Congress has done. Preliminary estimates of the Mississippi Department of Finance & Administration show that we will now have to spend between $50-100 million of state funds funds that must be taken away from public safety human services mental health & other state priorities and given to education in order for an additional $98 million of federal funds to be granted to education.

For Texas and only Texas this funding rule will be in place through 2013. This is a form of punishment because the Beltway crowd believes the Lone Star State didnt spend enough of its 2009 stimulus money. Apparently Texas politicians have been clinging to the quaint notion that the government should try to live within its means. Texans also seem to have an old-fashioned appreciation for the rule of law. On Friday 22 GOP Members of the states Congressional delegation sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

This provision would have Texas violate her own State Constitution they wrote.

The Texas Legislature has sole authority to determine State appropriations. Moreover one Legislature cannot bind a future Legislature. Requiring the State to assure that a future Texas Legislature would commit to spend funds in accordance with these provisions would violate the Texas Constitution.

Texas Governor Rick Perry is also opposed to this new assistance from the federal government. He understands that one-time payments that force permanently higher state obligations are a windfall for government employees. But if given the choice taxpayers would just say no. Thats because taxpayers are figuring out that these state bailouts are only making unions more reluctant to share their sacrifice. While Mr. Obama quotes the union figure of 160000 potential lost teacher jobs those dont have to come out of the classroom. According to research by Eric Hanushek of Stanford University from 1990 to 2007:

• Student Enrollment grew by 22 but
• Teacher Employment grew by 41.

Since 2000 enrollment has grown by 5 but teacher employment by 10. The unions themselves could have prevented some layoffs had they been willing to adjust their rich benefits. In Milwaukee for example nearly all of the 500 teacher layoffs announced earlier this year could have been avoided if the unions had agreed to change health plans that cost $23000 per teacher per year for family coverage. They could have accepted a still-rich $17000 plan. The unions chose the layoffs betting (correctly) that Democrats in Washington would come to their rescue. Keep in mind that this teacher bailout also amounts to a huge contribution by Democrats to their own election campaigns. The National Right to Work Committee estimates that two of every three teachers belong to unions. The average union dues payment varies but a reasonable estimate is that between 1 and 1.5 of teacher salaries goes to dues. The National Education Association and other unions will get as much as $100 million in additional dues from this bill much of which will flow immediately to endangered Democratic candidates in competitive House and Senate races this year.   So in the name of still another stimulus Democrats are rewarding their own political funders putting the most fiscally responsible states into even greater distress and postponing the day of reckoning for spendthrift states. Oh and Mr. Obama rushed to sign the bill Tuesday violating his campaign pledge to give the public five days to read legislation online. As we say the only way for voters to stop such fiscal abuse is to run this crowd out of town.