Ten Reasons Why the "Economic Stimulus" Should Not Include Education Spending. Backgrounder. No. 2233

Overview & Synopsis

House Democrats recently unveiled draft legislation for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Widely touted as an economic stimulus package, the $825 billion draft legislation included as much as $142 billion for education. This includes the creation of a $79 billion State Fiscal Stabilization Fund to assist state governments in providing public education and other services. The act also includes significant spending increases for current and proposed federal programs for K-12, postsecondary, and early childhood education. This approach is bad economic policy and bad education policy. An unprecedented federal spending increase for education will not improve economic growth--and past experience strongly suggests that this plan will not improve American educational performance. Instead of a massive federal spending increase, Congress should embrace fiscally responsible solutions to help states meet fiscal challenges and improve educational services. This paper discusses the top ten reasons why this spending plan is the wrong approach. (Contains 22 footnotes.)