Stimulus, Splurge & The Status Quo

Lisa Falkenberg:

Can you still call it “stimulus” funding if it’s being used for a purpose no more stimulating that maintaining the status quo?

The obvious answer, being shouted from schoolhouse rooftops by superintendents and the Texas Democratic congressional delegation, is no.

But that’s in large part what lawmakers are in the process of doing with federal stimulus dollars meant for Texas schools.

It’s a kind of switcheroo in which state Senate budget-writers cleaned out the state’s main public school fund, and one for school technology, sprinkled the dollars elsewhere in the budget, and then replenished the state school funds with about $2 billion in federal stimulus money.

In elementary math, that would be one, minus one, plus one equals one. In terms of state schools funding, Texas schoolchildren gain zero.

The Senate, led by Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and Senate Finance Chair Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, approved the budget. It’s expected to be considered by the full House Friday. Some argue the maneuver is a fiscally conservative, forward-thinking method of protecting the state’s rainy day fund this session so we’ll have about $9 billion of it next session to deal with whatever budget calamities arise.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at April 14, 2009 8:56 AM
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