My latest post over at Pundit League talks about the Obama White House’s attempt to shift the focus on budget debates from the money to the benefits. This month, they’re talking about education as a sacred cow; future budget battles are sure to treat other programs similarly. As difficult as budgets are, it’s still a tough sell to cut back on government programs everyone is used to.
But what if those programs, for lack of a better-refined and focus-group-tested term, suck? That reality may be the best arrow in any small government Robin Hood’s quiver.
The Heritage Foundation points out that a boom in education spending has not bought higher performance in America’s public schools. Thomas Sowell made a similar point this week, when he wrote about the allegedly ecologically friendly policies of urban liberals in San Francisco pricing low- and middle-class blacks out of the city. Private unions – who represent workers who actually have to worry about their jobs – are concerned that the EPA would cause layoffs from companies forced to spend extra complying with extraneous regulations.
For each of these programs and others like them, there’s always talk about the benefits. But as Speaker Boehner said this week, “Talk is cheap.”
Jim Eltringham 