$23 Billion Bailout For Teachers

You may not have heard about this one, but the Obama administration came out Thursday in support of emergency education funding legislation that would provide $23 billion to preserve teacher jobs in the face of massive impending layoffs across the country.

Wow, now let me understand. We bailed out the housing, banking and auto industries, but now we are going to bailout the teachers union. We will give $23 billion to the teachers union, but only $2 billion to the firefighters and police.

"Duncan's letter, which received White House support, urged Congress to include the emergency funding in an upcoming supplemental spending bill to fund military operations and other expenses."

Now, they are going to slip this into a defense/military spending bill. Bailout teachers and military spending...now they are similar, huh? That is how the CONgress critters do things, attach one spending item to another spending bill. The reason they will get this passed is who want to be seen denying the military funding. If you vote against this when you run for re-election, your opponent will show you voted "against" our military. Of course you won't be able to explain that you supported the miltary, but just didn't support our poor teachers....oops, you don't want to do that....okay, I'll vote for it. This also appears that this funding will come from our "regular" federal budget and not the stimulus spending bill funds. Why not? I don't know, but I'm sure they have a good reason, just like the reason they are trying to keep this hush-hush.

"We know that economic prosperity and educational success go hand in hand, which is why the Obama administration is concerned by looming state and local budget cuts that threaten the jobs of hundreds of thousands of teachers across the country, Domestic Policy Director Melody Barnes wrote in a blog posted yesterday to the White House website."

I call B.S. on this one. We all know that the teachers union was one of Obama's biggest financial supporters and this is just him watching out for another one of his supporters. They state they are concerned about the "hundreds of thousands of teachers" that may have their jobs threatened, but what about those millions of people that have lost their jobs. Where was their industry/union bailouts?

"In addition to state budget shortfalls across the country, stimulus funding for education is also winding down. The Recovery Act, specifically the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund, has helped save upwards of 300,000 education jobs. Since the Recovery Act was enacted, the Education Department has provided roughly $100 billion to states. The Harkin bill would, in essence, be an extension of the state funding."

So, we have already used the "stimulus" to a tune of $100 billion to save 300,000 education jobs and now we are going to spend another $23 billion. WOW, that's $410,000 per job saved. That's enough to let those 300,000 teachers be unemployed for 8-10 years if each was paid that $410,000. That is not fiscal responsibility!

Those that are unemployed should be really ticked off.